WDS - Client Naming Policy

[ijk]

Hi,

Server 2008 R2/WDS.

 

I am having a problem naming clients that I auto-add to the AD by WDS.

 

The server is configured to name clients using the %MAC variable. As I understand it that should mean that when I respond to pending clients and choose approve they should be named using their NIC's mac address. However this doesn't seem to happen and I have observed the following behaviour:

 

1) While the server is configured with wdsutil /set-server /prestageusingmac:no the computer account is created in AD using what looks like a randomisation of the GUID. At first I though it was the first 12 elements of the GUID, but then it appeared on closer inspection that it is randomised. I may be wrong. Nevertheless, each new client is successfully created in AD and everything runs on as expected.

 

2) While the server is configured with wdsutil /set-server /prestageusingmac:yes the computer account is created in AD using what, without any doubt, looks like 000000000000. This is either the first 12 units of the mac address (when using the prestageusingmac:yes option the computer's GUID is like the GUID in 1), but is e.g. 00000000-0000-0000-0000-08002B30309D, where 08002B30309D is the mac address) or a randomisation of the GUID, which has so far not managed to randomise any of the mac part of the address, thus always showing 0s.

 

As a consequence in 2) WDS fails to name the second approved client because there is a duplicate in AD.

 

If I configure the server client naming policy to be something like xyz%3# then approved computers are named according to that rule regardless of whether prestageusingmac is set to yes or no.

 

I find this jolly confusing.

 

Searching The Big Book yields a few reports and a MS hotfix for a problem that is similar to the one I think I'm experiencing (my problem may be a misconfiguration/misunderstanding). Specifically Windows Deployment Services generates duplicate client computer names when the %MAC variable is used. However I don't think that kb is describing my problem. It says in the symptoms section: "However, when WDS deploys the client computers during the unattended phase." What I am experiencing doesn't occur at that stage, it occurs when approving clients and auto-adding them to AD.

 

At the moment I'm just going to pretend this isn't happening and either name them manually (name and approve) or use a client naming policy that works, but I'd really like to know what is happening, and where it is going wrong - that is, going wrong as far as I've understood the process.

 

Many thanks.

 

Nic

[ijk]

Has no-one else experienced this issue?

I know that many of you are using the MDT to do your deployments but the "Install Software, Make changes, Make Image" routine is ingrained.

Is there anyone who is using WDS to name clients, and are using the %MAC variable in their Client Naming Policy who hasn't had this problem?

?