2

I have successfully installed a Cobbler server in virtualized Centos in a ESXi, so I can provide automated installation for a small bare-metal cluster I need to set up.

There is a black boxed DHCP and DNS set up in my company I can't manage nor check.

When I set in a sample box I have to boot over NIC with PXE, I can't properly select the IP of the Cobbler server, it tries to get a DHCPD address and then fails.

I am sure there is an elephant in the room I am currently unable to see, could anyone enlighten me on this topic? Should I create a small closed network just to be in charge of Cobbler's DNS/DHCP modules?

Navarro
  • 187
  • 6

1 Answers1

3

You don't necessarily need to run your own DHCP/DNS server with a cobbler installation, but in order to boot properly via PXE, the DHCP server must send additional attributes to the clients (at least next-server and filename which contain the hostname of the TFTP server and the filename to load from it).

If you can't have these attributes added to the DHCP config for the new cluster members, you would indeed need to setup your own VLAN with DHCP server, but talk to your companies networking team before starting.

Sven
  • 98,649
  • 14
  • 180
  • 226
  • 1
    You answer is not 100% correct. If you cannot modify the DHCP server in order to include the `next-server` and `filename` parameters you do not need to set up a different network; you can just use a proxyDHCP with your current DHCP server. See i.e. Serva proxyDHCP implementation for more details http://vercot.com/~serva/an/WindowsPXE1.html – Pat Jan 02 '17 at 18:52