PXE only Config [OT]

[Dan Farrell]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 07:59:11 -0700
Daniel Wells <daniel_wells at byu.edu> wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Dec 2007 12:47:04 +0100
> "Leonhard Kurz" <LeoKurz at gmx.de> wrote:
> "I don't have a lot of experience in bureaucratic big shops, so it's
> been difficult to concieve of a situation where DHCP needed to be
> deployed seperately from PXE and what that would look like...
> If somebody spent a few scarce seconds setting me straight, I would
> certainly appreciate it."
> 
> There are all sorts of legitimate reasons for separating the DHCP
> responses from the PXE responses (as well as many reasons for keeping
> them on the same server).  Desktop management utilities (like Altiris
> and Landesk) have been providing their own separate "PXE Server" for
> years as part of their imaging and management solutions. It makes it
> much easier for Desktop support to get it set up, especially if they
> don’t have control over the network.
> 
> As a University, our IT infrastructure is highly distributed.  We
> have a central IT dept. that maintains infrastructure that spans the
> entire campus (the network being one of them).  However each
> department/school within the University has their own local IT
> department which handles local needs.  Some departments rely on us
> more than others.  Up till now, PXE has not been too big an issue
> because few departments have wanted to use it.  As it has been
> gaining popularity, it is starting to become a problem, especially
> since PXE lives in the broadcast domain.  Departments with shared
> subnets are starting to realize that they both can’t set up PXE
> servers.
> 
> So we want to set up a central PXE solution (like our DHCP) and
> restrict the use of departmental PXE servers throughout campus (also
> like DHCP).  However, we want to the campus community to have more
> access to this PXE server than they have to the DHCP server, which is
> one reason to separate them.  Also, DHCP is viewed as the more
> critical system, serving tens of thousands of computers.  It makes
> sense not to try to add to it load.
> 
> These are just a few of the reasons why it makes sense to separate
> them.  However I still have not heard from anyone who seems to know
> the internal workings of the ISC DHCP server on whether it is capable
> of doing this.  Does ISC still watch this list?  Is there a way to
> tell ISC to just trust the admin and send a packet no matter how many
> options it thinks is missing?
> 
> We are hoping to solve this problem sooner than later.  We want to
> use the ISC DHCP server for our needs because of its maturity and
> reputation as a DHCP server. But if it cannot do this, we need to
> start looking for other options.
> 
> Sincerly,
> Daniel W.
> 

Thanks, I appreciate the information.  Sorry I can't help you set it
up, but I was curious what you were up to ; )