PXE Server in ghost solution suite

[dezt]

I am using ghost solution suite 1.0 and am trying to setup the deployment center 5.6 so I can boot my pc's from PXE and then ghost the image accross to them.

 

I have followed the instructions on the symantec site for installing everything and setting up all the boot floppy images that will be used when the boot menu comes up. Everything seems to be fine until I power on a PC and tell it to boot from network card. It brings up the PXE boot screen and starts looking for an ip address from my DHCP server, but then comes back at me with an error PXE-E53: No boot filename received.

 

I have googled the error and I keep getting the same response, make sure option 66 and 67 are setup on your DHCP server, the only problem is that nobody will tell me what values to put into these 2 options, I put my PXE server ip address in option 66, but don't have a clue what to put in option 67.

 

Can someone please tell me what i've done wrong, my PXE server is not on the same physical server as DHCP. in option 67 i'm assuming I have to put the path to the boot file but I don't know what format the boot file path should be in or what the bootfile is called or where it is located.

[Geoff]

If the file is in the root folder of your tftp server then you can simply put the file name. Otherwise prefix the directory name(s) to the file. For example, here's how some of my bootfiles are referenced.

 

thinstation.nbi.pxez
pxelinux/pxelinux.0

[dezt]

The filename I have for the boot image is GhostNBF.vfd This is disk image which i have then added to the boot list in PXE Configurator as network boot in the menu.

 

should I be putting GhostNBF.vfd in option 67 on the DHCP server? or should I put GhostNBF.1 which is the file that is listed in PXE configurator?

 

As it is at the moment, the GhostNBF file is located on the desktop, should I put it in the C: drive root and just put "GhostNBF.vfd" in option 67.

[dezt]

Here is a screenshot of the contents of my images folder, don't know if this will help or not. Which file should I be pointing to? When I put a filename in now I get error PXE-E87: Could not find selected boot item.

 

http://www.norden.lancsngfl.ac.uk/images/PXE.JPG

[Geoff]

Where is your tftp servers root folder in that path? Which file is your PXE NDB image?

[dezt]

the TFTP server that runs in services points to "C:\Program Files\Symantec\DeployCenter 5.6\PXE Server\PXEMTFTP.exe" which comes with the deployment center. What is the NDB file that you are talking about? What does that file do?

[mortstar]

I used this (http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/7910-pxe-ghost-2.html#post102698) excellent post by DMcCoy to get it working here.

 

Dunno if there is some useful information in there.

[Geoff]

the TFTP server that runs in services points to "C:\Program Files\Symantec\DeployCenter 5.6\PXE Server\PXEMTFTP.exe" which comes with the deployment center. What is the NDB file that you are talking about? What does that file do?

 

It's the PXE boot loader. It should be quite a small file (16k or less normally). I suspect the PXE.0 file in your screenshot might be it. Try pointing to that.

[dezt]

I tried pointing to Pxe.0 but get error PXE-E87: Could not find selected boot item.

 

I have been into PXE config on the deploy center server and it is set to show the PXEClient menu when the client connects to the server, but the error above stops this from happening.

[SYNACK]

I tried pointing to Pxe.0 but get error PXE-E87: Could not find selected boot item.

 

I have been into PXE config on the deploy center server and it is set to show the PXEClient menu when the client connects to the server, but the error above stops this from happening.

 

Sounds like the TFTP server that you have on your system is not pointing to the directory with the file that you defined in it. You may need to find the TFTP server applications configuration which probably has a gui but may simply be stored in a config file and point it to the right directory.

 

You should be able to see what it is avalible at the moment by connecting to your PXE server with a TFTP application (this one may work but I have not tested it) to see what it shows you. It may even be that it is pointing to a folder above where your image is and you just need to ad a folder path.

[dezt]

cheers SYNACK, i've setup pumpkin on the ghost server and disabled the tftp server I was using that came with ghost, I now know that the pxe.0 file is transfering accross OK as pumpkin has a log of everything that has happened. My only conclusion now is that the pxe.0 file is pointing somewhere that doesn't exist as I still got the Could not find selected boot item error. I'll have to try and create a new Pxe.0 file, does anyone know of an easy way of doing this with ghost?

[dezt]

I just want to say thanks to everyone that helped me, I've decided to use the 3com boot services disk instead of symantec's deploy center, it was a 10 minute job to setup and is now working fine. I don't know why I didn't try it before.

 

Thanks again to everyone that helped.