[sccm 2012] USB-C to Ethernet - issues with imaging via SCCM?

[0xnxmeless]

Hello all,

 

To begin with, sorry if I'm doing something wrong,rookie here + apprentice. Our trust is looking to purchase some newer devices for teaching staff, and we're looking towards the eventuality where devices no longer come equipped with Ethernet ports. I understand that USB-C to Ethernet adapters exist, but as far as my understanding goes, these adapters all come equipped with their own MAC address? Are there any of these adapters that allow the MAC address to be "passed through?" As in, adopt the MAC address of the host device?

 

Or alternatively, is there something that can be done with an existing dongle to make it pass through the right MAC address? Our concern is that the device would be registering on SCCM via the MAC address of the USB-C dongle and not the MAC address of the device itself.

 

Any and all insight would be helpful.

 

Thanks!

[TechMonkey]

A quick Google for "SCCM usb dongle" brings up this article https://larsstaal.com/2019/09/17/how-to-use-the-same-usb-nic-dongle-for-multiple-devices-with-sccm/ which is what I think I did, it has been a while. It also brings up this reddit post discussing the issue https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/nlh4um/advice_for_imaging_with_ethernet_dongles/ which discusses pass-through dongles.

 

Boils down to either set MECM to ignore the MAC address or don't buy cheap dongles.

[0xnxmeless]

A quick Google for "SCCM usb dongle" brings up this article https://larsstaal.com/2019/09/17/how-to-use-the-same-usb-nic-dongle-for-multiple-devices-with-sccm/ which is what I think I did, it has been a while. It also brings up this reddit post discussing the issue

which discusses pass-through dongles.

 

Boils down to either set MECM to ignore the MAC address or don't buy cheap dongles.

I really appreciate the quick reply, thank you!

[Oaktech]

We got around it by putting the whole image on a USB stick for devices that didn't have hardware NICs.

[dapaulio]

Go to organisational hierarchy settings. There is a tab about conflicts.

Enter the MAC address of all your usb Ethernet adapters.

 

This puts an exception on the dongle to build multiple computers.

[Norphy]

Go to organisational hierarchy settings. There is a tab about conflicts.

Enter the MAC address of all your usb Ethernet adapters.

 

This puts an exception on the dongle to build multiple computers.

 

This

 

Or use a docking station that supports MAC pass through.

[synaesthesia]

Hello all,

 

Our concern is that the device would be registering on SCCM via the MAC address of the USB-C dongle and not the MAC address of the device itself.

 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Just to clarify this a little for you - only the networking hardware has a MAC address, so in this case it would always be of the dongle as the host laptop won't have any physical MAC address other than it's wifi. In a laptop with ethernet and wifi, each would have it's own MAC address, and if you swapped the wifi card, it would get a new wifi MAC.

As has been mentioned, you can get the MAC's of the dongles on any device and you'll be able to add them into MCM

[jtotheb]

Our concern is that the device would be registering on SCCM via the MAC address of the USB-C dongle and not the MAC address of the device itself.

 

We create the Computer Device in SCCM prior to imaging and use the SMBIOS GUID when creating the Computer Device and leave the MAC blank.

 

However, we did manage to buy a batch of cheap devices that all came out of the factory without having had the SMBIOS GUID programmed so they were all identical! This gave us the same issue as the duplicate MACs would have and took us a bit longer to discover as we'd never had machines delivered with identical SMBIOS GUIDs before.

[CHiLL]

We see this sort of behaviour with our fleet of HP Essential USB-C docks, where if we image a device via SCCM using the LAN port in the dock, it's the MAC address of the dock that's registered in SCCM and would therefore not PXE if the task sequence was only deployed to the "Unknown Computers" collection. To get around this I just use the laptop's Ethernet port (which I understand isn't an option for you) but I've also deployed the task sequence to another collection that contains the device.

 

For example, I have a collection called "Workstations - Windows 10", which as it sounds, contains all Windows 10 devices. If I want to deploy Windows 11 to these devices, they won't PXE if the Windows 11 TS is deployed only to the Unknown Computers task sequence. Rather than remembering to delete the device out of SCCM devices, I instead deployed the task sequence to the "Workstations - Windows 10" collection and I am then able to PXE boot and deploy Windows 11. I ensured that the task sequence is only visible to PXE and boot media and we also have a password configured on the DP for PXE.

[slugshead]

I recently got a good number of Lenovo laptops and they came with the USB-C adaptors.

 

There's an option in the bios for MAC address pass through, turn it on and off you go. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht503574-mac-address-pass-through-feature-of-selected-lenovo-usb-based-docking-solutions-thinkpad

 

Mac stays the same regardless of the adaptor/dock in use.