PXE Booting with The Problem

Prerequisites

WDS for UEFI and Defining DHCP Vendor Classes

Creating the DHCP Policies
My Experience
BIOS Devices
📅 May 5, 2017 · ☕ 5 min read
🏷️ #DHCP #Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
#Walkthrough
#Windows Deployment #Windows Deployment Services
#Windows Server 2012 R2 #Windows Server 2016

UPDATE 2018-04-28: I’ve added the information in this

post to a new one completely re-written for Windows
Server 2016 here

In a previous post (PXE Booting for Microsoft Deployment

Toolkit) I mentioned that I would talk about how to set up
PXE to deal with VLANs. To be honest I forgot all about it
until someone on twitter reminded me - many thanks for
the reminder!

A lot of what I’m going to go through in this post I learned

from this YouTube video from BranchCache Bob, here’s
the video. There are some differences, which I’ll point out
below.

The Problem
You have multiple VLANs, and have a mixture of devices
with BIOS and UEFI and need to boot them from the
network using PXE from a WDS server.
 A Windows Deployment Server
What's on this Page
A Microsoft DHCP server (does not have to be
running on the same server as WDS) The Problem
Prerequisites
Have the DHCP server’s IP as a helper address on Defining DHCP Vendor Classes
Creating the DHCP Policies
your network switch for each VLAN you want to boot
My Experience

Defining DHCP Vendor

Classes
The first thing to do is to define the vendor classes for the
BIOS PXE Client x84 and x64 and the UEFI PXEClient x86
and x64. To do this:

1. Go to “DHCP”, right-click on IPv4

2. In the “DHCP Vendor Classes” window, click Add

3. For the Name enter “PXEClient (UEFI x86)”

4. For the “Description” enter whatever you want

5. Under the ASCII text enter PXEClient:Arch:00006

(you will not be able to paste this text, and it’s also
case-sensitive

6. Click OK to add it to the list

7. Now repeat steps 2 - 6 for “PXEClient (UEFI x64)”

with PXEClient:Arch:00007 as the ASCII value

8. Finally, repeat steps 2 - 6 for “PXEClient (BIOS x86 &

x64)” with PXEClient:Arch:00000 (five zero’s) as the
ASCII value

You should now have three additional vendor classes.

 What's on this Page

The Problem
Prerequisites
Defining DHCP Vendor Classes
Creating the DHCP Policies
My Experience

Creating the DHCP Policies

Now we’re going to create policies in DHCP so that the
correct files are served to the correct clients. You will need
to do this for each DHCP scope.

1. Go to DHCP and expand the scope you wish to

create a policy for

2. Right-click on “Policies” and choose “New Policy”

3. Enter “PXEClient (UEFI x64)” for the name

4. Enter a “Description”, or leave it blank. Click Next

5. On the “Configure Conditions for the policy” screen,

click Add

6. In the “Add/Edit Condition” window, click the “Value:”

drop down menu

7. Choose the “PXEClient (UEFI x64)” vendor class you

created earlier

8. Tick the “Append wildcard” check box and then click

Add and finally OK

9. Click Next on the “Configure Conditions for the

policy” screen
10. On the “Configure settings for the policy” screen, click
No for the “Do you want to configure an IP address What's on this Page

range for the policy”. Click Next The Problem

Prerequisites
11. Please Note: if DHCP is on the same server as WDS, Defining DHCP Vendor Classes
you will need to set option 060, if WDS is on a Creating the DHCP Policies
My Experience
different server, you do not need to set option 060

12. On the “Configure settings for the policy” screen,

scroll down until you see options “060” (if applicable),
“066” and “067”

13. Tick option “060” and enter “PXEClient” if applicable

14. Tick option “066” and enter either the FQDN or the IP
address of the WDS server

15. Tick option “067” and enter boot\x64\wdsmgfw.efi -

this is the x64 UEFI boot file for WDS. Click Next

16. On the “Summary” screen, if all the details are

correct, click “Finish”

17. Now repeat steps 2 - 14 for “PXEClient (UEFI x86)”

with boot\x86\wdsmgfw.efi as option “067”

18. Finally, repeat steps 2 - 14 once again for “PXEClient

(BIOS x86 & x64)” with boot\x64\wdsnbp.com as
option “067” and leave option “060” empty

Don’t forget to repeat the above for each VLAN you wish
to PXE boot from. Now in DHCP, if you expand the Scope
Options folder you should see the new options you just
created and under policy name should be the names of
the policies you just created. You should be able to boot
both a UEFI and BIOS devices from the network. Please
note, if DHCP is installed on the same server as WDS,
you will need to check both the “Do not listen on DHCP
ports” and “Configure DHCP options to indicate that this
is also a PXE server” options. I do not currently have
DHCP and WDS on the same server so I cannot reliably
My Experience
What's on this Page

On my production network, I had previously added a The Problem

helper address for the WDS server along with the DHCP Prerequisites
Defining DHCP Vendor Classes
server, so I have two helper addresses. I have not added Creating the DHCP Policies
policies for anything except PXEClient (UEFI x64) as my My Experience

standard BIOS devices booted without issue, but my UEFI

devices wouldn’t boot at all. I haven’t added PXEClient
(UEFI x86) as all my devices boot x64 images and use
x64 Task Sequences. So I have only one Policy in
DHCP/IPv4/Scope x.x.x.x/Policies. My WDS server is
running Windows Server 2016 and my DHCP server is
Windows Server 2012 R2. An issue I currently have is
that I cannot perform more than 2 or 3 PXE boots at a
time, but no doubt it’s something to do with the “unique”
configuration of my network. I guess your mileage may
vary, but hopefully this post helps you out in some way.

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