IP Helpers and Netboot

[jarednichols]

Has anyone set these up on their network to enable netboot across subnets by holding N instead of a bless command?

Thanks!
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[bentoms]

Works for me to.

DHCP is not enabled on NetBoot servers.

I think it works like: mac boots & sends out bootp requests... IPHELPER forwards requests to IPHELPER address... NetBoot server responds.. Mac starts booting into NetBoot environment & then gets dhcp.

I might be wrong.

We're also running PXE boot on the same switches & both are happy.

Regards,

Ben.

[jarednichols]

Ben-

So your DHCP and Netboot servers are separate servers, yes?

j
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[tlarkin]

My DHCP and netboot have always been separate. Though I limit netboot to a specific VLAN for security reason. I don't want any users netbooting from outside specific network points. Works for me since I am mostly laptops, but in a desktop environment I could easily see wanting to image a work station at it's current location. Those Mac Pros can be heavy.

-Tom

[sean]

I'm in a mainly Linux environment. Our DHCP servers are Linux, we bind to AD and our routers allow for bootp relays (ip helpers or other name).

If your netboot server isn't suppose to be a DHCP server, then don't turn on DHCP, netboot works without the need for DHCP to be turned on.

Netboot used extended DHCP. Check out the following:

http://afp548.com/netboot/mactips/bootpd.html

Makes it really clear.

Sean

[bentoms]

yep.

DHCP - WIN2K8 servers

NetBoot - Lion servers

[brlittle]

Similar. Win DHCP server, Lion Xserve handling NetBoot. NB server is visible from all VLANs.

--
Brian J. Little
Macintosh Computing Analyst: ACTC, ACMT
Davidson College
Information Technology Services
213 N. Main St., Box 7164
Davidson, NC 28035
http://forum.davidson.edu/fieldnotes
704-894-2429

[ktrampe]

Morning, yep!

We use a Win DHCP server and net boot across subnets via IP helper entries.

Kerry

[lisacherie]

+1 for Win DHCP, snow leopard netboot servers, ip helper addresses on switches. Works well.

Lisa Davies
ICT Client Services Manager
Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview
Phone: 02 9882 8413
Mobile: 0417 005 735

[jarednichols]

All-

This is awesome information and will definitely help me help our network guys set up with this.

Thanks!

j
---
Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

[#11]

Same here.

The tricky thing is, if you have different switches with different firmware versions... and netadmins who don't enble write memory...ugh ugh ugh... documentationnnnn!!!! We have had some power blips with the recent storm-I try to netboot on a particular subnet-can't. Gotta call netadmin to add iphelper again. But, works great if you just have those on there. Dif logic for each type of device-we have alcatel and hp ... different models... all over. It's not easy on Alcahell... HP always works, and Cisco too. Just my two cents, from my experience with it.

-lauren

lauren nicholas
User Support & Technology Analyst - Hurd Campus
Center for Information Technology
Moravian College
610 861 1633