WDS, Hyper-V and virtual clients

[JHeaton]

Has anyone got this working successfully?

At the moment on my Hyper-V test server, I have one domain controller VM running DHCP, one WDS VM with some basic boot and install images, and one client VM with the legacy network adapter set as the first boot device.

On the DHCP server, I have options 66 and 67 configured with the FQDN of the WDS server and the boot file (boot\x64\wdsnbp.com (I've tried many suggested alternatives)). On the WDS server, I've made sure that it is authorised in the DHCP server and that all the relative services have started. Clients can receive an IP address via DHCP no problem, except when trying to PXE. No matter what options I tweak, I just get the rolling line until it eventually times out.

All three VMs are on the same internal network completely isolated from the host, so there's nothing else to interfere, but I just can't get the client VM to PXE boot.

Is anyone able to offer any tips?

Thanks.

 

[Ringiho]

Have you tried IP address rather than FQDN in the DHCP options? I've always run WDS on the DHCP server to make life easier in the end.

On a seperate issue I've had issues with WDS running inside of VMs. DHCP would fail to give an address or generally time out and as soon as it was run on physicals it was perfectly fine. Gave up in the end!

 

[JHeaton]

I have tried using the IP address rather than FQDN but it makes no difference. I'd run it on a physical box if I had another one, but this is the only one which is why everything is on Hyper-V.

 

[NDJ88]

Has anyone got this working successfully?

Yes, very very recently.

On the DHCP server, I have options 66 and 67 configured with the FQDN of the WDS server and the boot file (boot\x64\wdsnbp.com (I've tried many suggested alternatives)).

You only need to set option 66 and 67 if the WDS server is on the same box as DHCP.

I have WDS and DHCP on different machines, without these options configured and it works fine.

On the WDS server, I've made sure that it is authorised in the DHCP server and that all the relative services have started.

Authorisation isn't about allowing PXE boot. You can PXE boot to a WDS server that hasn't been authorised.

Is anyone able to offer any tips?

Have you tried it without option 66/67 in DHCP?

You have run WDSUTIL, right?

 

[NDJ88]

Just to add to the above - take a look at this link:

Configuring DHCP

An important quote:

the default installation is that Windows Deployment Services and the DCHP server are located on different physical computers. In this scenario, no additional configuration steps are required for interoperability between Windows Deployment Services and the DHCP server.

If you remove all the DHCP options you've tinkered with, I reckon it will spring into life.

 

[JHeaton]

Thanks for that. As soon as I took those options out, it started working and the client connected to the server! Now the experiment can continue.