Misc 26

WDS is Microsoft's implementation of PXE. It is a direct replacement for Windows Server 2003's RIN. WDS is optimized for use with Vista and above.
WDS requires the computer to be a DC or joined to an AD domain. A DHCP server must be available on either the same computer or a different computer. The DHCP server and WDS server need not be in the same subnet, though having it in the same subnet will shorten the configuration a lot. Also, the router must allow traffic from port 67 (DHCP/WDS) and port 4011 (PXE Proxy DHCP).

I'll begin with a vanilla Windows Server 2008 x64 with ADDS role installed. The architecture will not matter so these instructions work for both x86 and x64. From here I'll assume you have control of the Administrator account or an account in Domain Admins.



In this topology, the WDS/DHCP Server has the interface IP of 4.4.4.2. R1 has an IP of 4.4.4.1 on F0/0 and 5.5.5.1 on F0/1. All subnets are /24. We'll first set up local WDS services, then we'll set up WDS for other subnets. For simplicity sake, the WDS and DHCP are on the same server.



You'll have to install DHCP BEFORE or WITH WDS. This is so that if WDS detects the DHCP role in the computer, it can automatically do the necessary changes. I will not walk through DHCP configuration, but here are the parameters for the two scopes:
VMnet4
IP Range: 4.4.4.10 - 4.4.4.254
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 4.4.4.1

VMnet5
IP Range: 5.5.5.10 - 5.5.5.254
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 5.5.5.1

Global
DNS: 4.4.4.2

The 5.5.5.0/24 scope is not required right now, but just put it in anyway because you'll have to set it up to give an IP for VMnet5 clients later on.

Now move on to Start - Administrative Tools - Windows Deployment Services. At this point you shouldn't have anything running in the server. Your WDS console would look like this:



Right-click on your server and click on Configure Server to launch the initialization wizard. Click next till you're at this screen:



This is the folder where WDS would store your images. When we talk about Unattended installations later on, this is also where we store the .xml configuration files. They do not recommend storing these files on the primary HDD but we're going to do that anyway.

In the next window, you'll have the option to add Option 60 and to Ignore Port 67. We will need to tick both since WDS and DHCP are running on the same server.



For simplicity sake, select to allow all clients at the next window.

Now we'll have to put in Install and Boot images. These images can be found on the operating system's respective CD/DVDs. For our case, we'll deploy Windows Server 2008 x64 servers, so pop the W2K8x64 DVD into the drive.

To add Install images, right click on Install Images and click Add Install Images. Next, browse to X:\sources\ and select install.wim where X is your DVD drive name. Follow through the Wizard and you should end up with an image group and some images in it.



Do the same for Boot Images, except that now you select X:\sources\boot.wim.



Right now you should be able to deploy your first PXE client. We'll try to do one in the same subnet first. When booting up, hit F12 to boot from network. You should boot into the boot.wim image automatically. The client we're using is labeled Internal PXE on the topology.



Now that we're done with internal clients, how about external ones? Since PXE relies on DHCP, you'll have to do a relaying of the packets to both the DHCP and PXE clients for external clients like how you would normally do: through ip helper-address:
in f0/1
ip helper-address 4.4.4.2

Boot up an external client at the location labeled External PXE and it should be working fine!