My Network Boot Setup - WDS and Syslinux - Inst Windows in mins + boot CDs over LAN

[FoolishTech]

Originally Posted by DocGreen

First question might be a dumb one, but... when I put a boot image on the WDS, say from one of my boot CD's, I'm just putting the ISO in, right? So does the WDS work as a virtual drive for the client then? Does anything get copied to the client HDD?

Second question... you went over adding extra boot images briefly... is there anything special needed to add things like Parted Magic or a Win7 PE, or are those just as easy as copying the ISO's and adding them to the boot menu?

Thought of another question... you said that one image of Windows will allow you to install all editions. What about OEM vs Retail? Will we need to have different images for each?

1. Adding Windows boot images can be done via a mounted ISO or a physical disk - but the data is extracted from the ISO/or/disk and saved on the server as a WIM file. Then you're done with your disk/ISO - they aren't needed any longer. Most everything copied to the client HDD while loading a boot image is in memory only.

2. Now adding other utilities to the mix, yes, in many cases you can simply add the ISO to the appropriate folder listed in my guide, modify the config file, and that's it. There are however some Linux based distros that don't like that method and there are *other* ways - Clonezilla is a prime example and has it's own instructions on their website for adding it as a network boot image - I don't know about Parted Magic I think it works fine though.

3. You will need different OEM/Retail editions for the likes of Windows XP (and I cannot remember if Vista has different versions also - I think 7-8 should be ok with one for both OEM/Retail) but basically if the original Windows install disk will take both OEM/Retail keys, so will it as a WDS deployment - if it doesn't, then it won't. I almost exclusively work with OEM so that's all I've ever bothered to put on my WDS.

Originally Posted by brandonkick

Now we finally get to my questions! I don't know that much about windows server (just started fresh yesterday) and this is why I'm asking.

My home network setup is fairly simple. I have a cable modem going into a belkin wireless router. Connected to that router via ethernet are two desktop PC's, and sometimes a laptop via wireless. When I plugged my laptop into the network it seems like the other computers on the network now want to use the DNS server on my XPS laptop?

A window popped up on my workstation screen asking me to choose a network location (home, work, or public) and it was "xps.local". Running an ipconfig /all confimed that it was using the DNS server on my laptop.

I don't want that to happen (if that's possible). I want to plug the laptop into the network and then I can plug in client computers to deploy images to. The clients finds the server and then can make use of WDS. What settings do I have to change (both on my server and on the other normal computers on my network) so that the other computers on the network leave their networking settings as they were before I ever plugged the server into the network? If I can't do that, then what do I need to learn about a DNS server to properly configure my computers. The desktop workstation was able to get online just fine, and my iphone 4s was able to connect via wireless with no issues. However my mothers droid 4 wouldn't work on wireless and only after shutting down the server would it start working again.

Knowing as little as I do, it's amazing that it looks like I'll be able to deploy windows across the network at all. I need to learn a lot more about windows server and networking in general. They only showed us the basic networking stuff when I was studying for a bachelors of science degree in computer science (nothing windows server at all).

Wow, server OS on a laptop, now I've heard it all! Well first, your server config is a little whacky and you didn't mention it but you MUST DISABLE DHCP on your router before ever expecting this setup to work reliably if you've enabled that server role. If that is off on your router you should be ok. I used to have my setup with the router handling DHCP and the server handling DNS - the router was configured as a DNS forwarder. This worked for a while but for some reason blew up on me at some point and PXE boot stopped working - so now I have my server handling everything.

Now also your static ip and scope are a bit whacky - though it will work... I have my router as 192.168.1.1 and my server assigned as 192.168.1.2 - then I have my DHCP scope setup as like 192.168.1.100 - .150 (I have a few other static IP network devices like printers, security cameras, etc. in the .3 - .99 range here and there which is why my DHCP scope starts up at .100

Now on to your actual questions...

That's correct - workstations will use DNS on your server. Like I mentioned earlier, you want to disable DHCP (and along with it would be DNS) on your router.

Having DHCP (and subsequently DNS) being handed out by both your router AND the 'server' is a no-no! You will have network issues and you will have some computers that work for a while as others won't work at all.

There is NO workaround for these issues.

This means your laptop is going to have to be plugged into the network at all times, not just when you want to deploy an image. I HOPE you only have it on your laptop for testing purposes. I also hope you haven't activated the server OS on it yet either, because you are going to want to switch it to some desktop hardware at the least.

Do I understand correctly that you're putting this together for a PC shop in town? If so you'll have to get with him on some proper server hardware if possible, or a decent workstation with plenty of RAM else...

I myself would love to learn a lot more about server OSes but I know enough to get by for what I do...

[brandonkick]

Thanks a ton for the responses!

I did not disable DHCP on my router and honestly figured that this would be the case, that I would have to have DHCP and DNS handled by my server.

I do, in theory, have a better solution. I have another router which I can set up and use (exactly the same as the one I'm also using now for my home network) as a DNS forwarder. I'll do some searching around to see if I can figure out how to get that set up on my other router. It's new in the box and not being used.

So I don't have to mess with my home network and my laptop doesn't have to be a permant part of my home network.

This way I can have the other router set up so that all I have to do is plug in the router, plug my laptop into it and then plug the client computer into the router.

This is all temporary and ideally I would like to move onto more "proper" hardware for this setup. Cash is just kind of tight right now, so it could be a few months before I can build a proper server.

I did not activate the server OS as you said, since I'm not sure it will be staying on the laptop.

As far as my IP scopes / ranges go...

So you gave your router a static IP address (default gateway?) of 192.168.1.1 and then your server a static ip address of 192.168.1.2.

Then you set your DHCP scopes up from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150 ?

What is your DNS servers ip on the windows server machine?


As far as setting this up for the tech in town. It's an idea. I know he wanted a solution for having multiple reinstall disks and boot disks laying around but I'm not sure or not yet that I want to set this up for him.

I want to learn more about this stuff first.

Thanks for your help so far!

[FoolishTech]

Originally Posted by brandonkick

So you gave your router a static IP address (default gateway?) of 192.168.1.1 and then your server a static ip address of 192.168.1.2.

Then you set your DHCP scopes up from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150 ?

What is your DNS servers ip on the windows server machine?

Yep!

As for DNS on the server, if you mean the preferred DNS server in the network adapter properties, that should always be 127.0.0.1 (which means 'localhost') so the server knows to query itself for DNS.

As for the actual DNS that the server USES and hands out to clients (and itself) you can use your ISP's DNS servers or personally I use OpenDNS and Google DNS servers. You access that in Server Manager > Roles > DNS Server > DNS, where you right click on [yourservername] and go to properties then hit the Forwarders tab.

Originally Posted by brandonkick

As far as setting this up for the tech in town. It's an idea. I know he wanted a solution for having multiple reinstall disks and boot disks laying around but I'm not sure or not yet that I want to set this up for him.

Once you're confident you can do it for him without much issue, I would do it and charge him a big consulting and implementation fee

[DocGreen]

Thanks for the replies Nick! I took the plunge last night and switched my server from a Workgroup to a Domain... at this point I'm still ironing out the kinks from that ordeal. While I was messing around with the DNS on the server I noticed that my router had crapped out on me... again. It does this quite frequently where it will still allow traffic through, but won't respond for anything else. Guess I'll be stopping to put DD-WRT on it finally, lol.

Did I catch that right that I HAVE to use the server for DHCP? Is it going to matter that the server is the only computer joined to the domain? I'd prefer to leave all the other computers with a Workgroup setup... mostly because of laptops that frequently get used outside of the home.

[brandonkick]

Thanks again!

I guess a better question to ask was how did you configure your DHCP server?

You don't really pick any settings when you install the DNS server, it's a part of setting up Active Directory Domain Services.

When you go to install the DHCP server role, it asks you for:

Select the network connection that this DHCP server will use for serving clients:

I take it this is the static IP address you gave to your network connection on the server (in your case 192.168.1.2)

Then it asks for:
parent domain (FQDN)

a preferred DNS Server Ipv4 Address (again I'd assume this is the static IP you assigned to your server, and in your case that would be 192.168.1.2)

on the next page it asks for WINS information

on the page after that it asks for DHCP scopes...

Your stating IP and ending IP address can be whatever you want so long as:

1) They do not have ranges which cover IP address that you statically set up

2) They have the first three octects match the first three octets in your dns server.

So in your case 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150 fits the bill of both of those rules.

Then I guess to re affirm to myself, you then go into your router and set it to 192.168.1.1

Seems to be making sense to me! Thanks!

[FoolishTech]

Originally Posted by brandonkick

I guess a better question to ask was how did you configure your DHCP server?

When you go to install the DHCP server role, it asks you for:

Select the network connection that this DHCP server will use for serving clients:

I take it this is the static IP address you gave to your network connection on the server (in your case 192.168.1.2)

Then it asks for:
parent domain (FQDN)

a preferred DNS Server Ipv4 Address (again I'd assume this is the static IP you assigned to your server, and in your case that would be 192.168.1.2)

on the next page it asks for WINS information

on the page after that it asks for DHCP scopes...

To be honest when I installed the DHCP server role I think I just hit NEXT until it was done and that was it minus a few things. The network connection yes should be the server's IP address. The FDQN should be populated already with your domain name in it like 'server.local'

However the preferred DNS server should technically be set to 127.0.0.1 rather than the server's actual IP - it would probably work like that (setting it to 192.168.1.2) but I think there is a 'best practices' model to follow here

DHCP Scopes we already covered. WINS is not used at all just click Next.

Yes on the other stuff, you got it right.

Originally Posted by DocGreen

Did I catch that right that I HAVE to use the server for DHCP? Is it going to matter that the server is the only computer joined to the domain? I'd prefer to leave all the other computers with a Workgroup setup... mostly because of laptops that frequently get used outside of the home.

Yep, having DHCP handled on the server is the best setup. Like I said it worked for me with DHCP on the router (with DNS forwarder setup from the server) but this configuration just stopped working for me at some point and I never could resolve it - the more I read and dug into it the more people I found saying it shouldn't even work the other way. So now my server rules them all.....

Yes it will work if your server is the only machine on the domain! Your other systems on workgroups will behave exactly as they should - they don't know that the server isn't a router they just take the DHCP assignments and get DNS from that, no problem!

[brandonkick]

awesome!

Thanks for all your help.. hopefully I'll get to test deploy an image tonight!

Thanks again