Thank you for being so patient and helpful, Michael.
I guess I am not clear how the DHCP next-server parameter would help me.
Here's how I imagine it might work: Suppose there are two PXE servers on the
same network/VLAN/subnet. Both are listed as next-server entries in DHCP.
A client performs a DHCP DISCOVER request for a PXE Server, and both server
addresses are returned to the client by the DHCP server. The client then
sends a PXE boot request to both servers. Server A is configured to only
respond to a list of known clients right away, Server B will respond to all
clients after some short delay (thus giving the Server A time to respond to
the client first, if it's going to). The requesting client gets a response
from one or both of these servers, and begins its TFTP download of the
network boot program (pxelinux.0 in our case, right?), as directed by the
first responder.
Is this a reasonable approximation of what you're proposing to me? If so,
the constraint I am attempting to work under is both Altiris (Server A) and
Cobbler (Server B) need the flexibility to be able to respond to any
arbitrary client, not just a list of known clients. I'm trying to avoid
making each server only available to certain networks/vlans/subnets, if
possible; though, it is an option we're willing to use if nothing else will
work. In our organization, we have sevaral VLANs that span across two
geographic locations that, ideally, would have access to both Altiris and
Cobbler Install servers. I'm shooting for the ability to sit down at any
workstation at any location, select PXE boot, and have the ability to choose
Altiris or Cobbler.
Maybe I should start at a more basic level to understand what's going on: at
the point I see the blue Cobbler Menu screen on my client computer, have I
pxe booted yet, or am I just looking at a PXE boot management screen? I've
gotten the impression from various docs that you can chain pxe boots; so,
you could pxe boot from server A, then have server A tell you to PXE boot
from server B. I'm looking for a way to do that from Cobbler, if possible.
--
Brandon
On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Michael DeHaan <mdehaan(a)redhat.com> wrote:
Brandon Young wrote:
> Thank you all for your responses. gPXE looks very promising.
>
> --
> Brandon
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Can you elaborate as to why you'd prefer that to just configuring DHCP
next-server parameters?
--Michael
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