Netboot

swright_mm
New Contributor III

Hi, Right now our company is using separate Netboot servers for all the different offices. So when it's time to update the netboot images I have to manually do all of them 1 by 1. Is there a way I can set it to where I only have 1 and control it for all offices? Right now I'm remoting them from my computer and just repeating the steps for each Netboot so that they match.

5 REPLIES 5

tthurman
Contributor III

Are you using the NetSUS Appliance?

If so, you would need to set up IP Helpers and add the subnets to the appliance for that server for each location.

Regards,
TJ

benducklow
Contributor III

@swright.mm - I'm in the same boat with you.. I have a some rsync scripts that actually get them out to the server itself but have to ARD in and configure Netboot to use the new image, etc. I'd be curious to see what everyone else is doing as well.

bentoms
Release Candidate Programs Tester

@swright.mm We rsync the NetBoot Inages across servers.

As detailed here.

MAD0oM
Contributor

@swright.mm the way i've set up this in the past is have my netboot server available at all sites. basically here is a brief overview of what happens when you Netboot a client and what you need to do.

Computer chimes when you turn it on
The computer runs a self test and loads the machine firmware.
A blinking globe appears.
The computer is requesting an IP address and Netboot information:
DHCP and BSDP (boot service discovery protocol)

What you may or may not want to do:

Typically when a Mac client sends out a broadcast request for a netboot server it’s done over the same subnet. However, in your case broadcast information from the server doesn’t relayed past your routers, you need to add the IP address of your Netboot server to your router's DHCP helper table that way all clients on the subnet can boot to this netboot server when they request a BSDP ..To basically sum it up you need your guys/gals to configure the routers to send bsdp broadcasts to your net boot server

let me know if this helps

jhalvorson
Valued Contributor

I have four different Netboot servers in three different states. I create a Netboot.nbi file on one and then copy that .nbi file to the other servers and it works fine. Just wanted to make sure you are aware that you don't have to create a unique netboot image for each of the servers.