Netboot Question

[peelers]

Hi,

Beware, potential stupid question ahead. We are in the final stages of selecting Casper as the Mac management tool for our environment. Currently we are a Windows and SCCM shop for our PCs. We would like to utilize the Casper NetBoot Imaging functionality. Right now we have DHCP set up to PXE boot to SCCM for Windows builds and a ton of IP-helpers on different subnets to forward DHCP requests.. am I going to have a conflict here? If I simply create a new vendor class on my MS DHCP server for Macs will that suffice?

Would love to hear from those who are doing both Windows and Mac network builds on the best way to design/configure this.. any tips are appreciated!

[glutz · Accepted solution]

You should just set your IP Helper to include the NetBoot server. Its ok because they do recognize the vender classes and ignore the options you don't need. Also if your on Cisco Nexus you have to set an additional option to allow the traffic to pass through.

[peelers]

Anybody?

[glutz · Accepted solution]

You should just set your IP Helper to include the NetBoot server. Its ok because they do recognize the vender classes and ignore the options you don't need. Also if your on Cisco Nexus you have to set an additional option to allow the traffic to pass through.

[cstout · Accepted solution]

We use SCCM and just purchased Casper Suite. During our evaluation we had no conflicts with PXE and NetBoot. We did need to use IP helpers for NetBoot.

[jprice8006]

You included that you have use an additional option if on a Nexus, but didn't include which option. I am on a Nexus 7k. The ip helper-address is not an option. How do I enable NetBoot?

[jprice8006]

I can't make this work on a nexus...

[Josh_S]

NetBoot/PXE Boot requests, from a networking standpoint, look like DHCP requests (however, you can calm your panicked networking engineer down by saying that it'll be fine and your servers won't respond to general DHCP requests). So quick googling for Nexus and DHCP forwarding comes up with "DHCP-Relay". However, I do not manage Nexus devices, so your milage may vary.

[kerouak]

Or setup a Linux Netsus Appliance..
Done!