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I am in a situation where I do not have control over DHCP on a subnet. I have a Satellite server that I want to use to provision VMware guests. The Satellite is on a different subnet and VLAN.

Is there a way I can modify the guest's boot options so that PXE doesn't need DHCP? I just want to tell it what its IP configuration is, like "virtual DHCP", and TFTP location is in the guest configuration.

I have very little control over the vSphere environment either. I have just enough access to provision a guest. The subnet is shared with other guests that have their own DHCP requirements that supersede mine.

xdfil
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3 Answers3

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PXE (Booting from the net) always uses DHCP.

But you have alternatives for your problem: Even when you have no control over the DHCP server you can surely add a proxyDHCP server. In such environment when a PXE client boots it'll get offers from both; the regular DHCP server "and" the proxyDHCP server. From the first one it'll get the common net parameters (IP/Mask/etc) and from the second one it'll get the PXE specific stuff (TFTP server IP, and NBP filename). Using a proxyDHCP is not intrusive; it only answers to PXE clients DHCP requests. i.e. Serva is a PXE server that includes a proxyDHCP server. (I'm related to Serva development)

Pat
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Use gPXE from http://etherboot.org/wiki/index.php

You can download a bootable ISO or floppy image to boot the VM from. I have used it for machines that werent able to network boot.

From gPXE you can then boot the same way PXE normally would - by loading a file from the TFTP server.

Exactly how you boot it depends on what your PXE server is running. Their wiki has plenty of howtos with examples for typical situations.

Grant
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PXE is DHCP. http://download.intel.com/design/archives/wfm/downloads/pxespec.pdf Pxe is dhcp discover packets with option 60 set as client, and only responds to a dhcp offer with option 60

Jim B
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