Preferred MP and DP during Winpe and full blown OS

Question

Hi everyone,
Hope all are safe and sound !!
So if I happen to use scope options 66 and 67 in my DHCP server for pxe and in case if I chose the remote wds server in option 66 even though I have the local WDS for that location, need to be confirmed on the below info :

does only my boot file would get picked up over wan from remote WDS server and other content after getting the system in WinPE and full-blown os would get picked from my local DP?? As in boundary, we have set the local DP as preferred ??

how does the system decide management point and distribution point in win PE I guess both of them are decided by boundary group allotment ??

Hope someone's experience could help!
Regards
Shashi Dubey

Answer 1

I strongly suggest you rethink your use of DHCP scope options; iphelpers are strongly preferred: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/configuration-manager-blog/you-want-to-pxe-boot-don-t-use-dhcp-options/ba-p/275562

The PXE process in ConfigMgr only delivers the boot image to the target system. Once the system boots into WinPE from boot image, PXE is no longer involved and all content used and delivered during the task sequence is downloaded from a DP using the standard DP location process in ConfigMgr which is based on your configured boundaries and boundary groups. MP selection is random from memory within WinPE.

Answer 2

Hi,

Thanks for posting in TechNet.

I concur with Jason here. DHCP options can be problematic and might not work reliably or consistently. Also, using DHCP options to control PXE requests in Configuration Manager is not supported by Microsoft.

Based on my experience, you need to configure the IP Helpers correctly. IP Helpers must be configured on the routers if any of the DHCP server, the client computer, or the Configuration Manager server that is running WDS and the PXE-enabled DP are on separate subnets or VLANs.

1. IP Helpers are necessary because the PXE request that is generated by the client computer is a broadcast that doesn't travel outside the local subnet or VLAN. If the DHCP server or the WDS/PXE-enabled DP aren't on the same subnet or VLAN as the client computer, they will not see or hear the PXE request broadcast from the client. Therefore, the servers will not respond to the PXE request.
2. For the scenario that are unable to use IP Helpers, we can deploy both DHCP server and PXE-enabled DP on the remote site.

For more information, please refer to:
How to boot from a PXE server that's on a different network
Understand PXE boot in Configuration Manager

Thanks for your time.
 
Best regards,
Simon
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