PXE Boot

rpotter28 · Nov 30, 2015, 11:06 PM

PXE boot options in DHCP are not working for me.. I've tried many/all config options to try and get option 66 and option 67 sent out to clients. I have succeeded using the additional options config, the clients receive option 66 and 67 successfully, still won't boot. I know the tftp server is good, as everything works fine when I swap my edgemax router back in.

Any ideas?

cmb · Dec 1, 2015, 1:05 AM

Those options work in general in 2.3. Maybe some additional DHCP option you're missing, or some other reason the clients won't boot?

albatorsk · Mar 30, 2016, 4:10 PM

I can't get PXE boot to work with pfSense 2.3 either. It worked just fine with 2.2. I just can't figure out what's wrong.

I've entered my TFTP server IP address in the TFTP Server field, and since there's no Filename field, I've added option 67 under "Additional BOOTP/DHCP Options" as a text type and entered the boot file there. After clicking Save,

option custom-lan-0 code 67 = text;

is added to the global section of /var/dhcp/etc/dhcpd.conf, and

option tftp-server-name "10.11.12.1";
option custom-lan-0 "pxelinux.0";

is added to my subnet range section.

I've experimented by adding option 67 as a string type instead, and instead of using the TFTP Server field, adding option 66 by hand, to no effect.

If I instead manually insert the following two rows in the subnet range section, it starts working again

next-server 10.11.12.1;
filename "pxelinux.0";

However, since the file is recreated every time I press save, I need to find a long term solution. Any help would be much appreciated. I'd love to help find the problem if anyone can guide me through it.

EDIT: After doing some digging, it would seem that none of my clients support option 66. They only work with the next-server option. Is there a way to set that in pfSense? And has that changed since pfSense 2.2, since it worked with my old config back then?

jimp · Mar 31, 2016, 12:21 PM

It's there it's just not displayed by default. It's in a collapsed panel titled "Network Booting". Click the + at the end of that header and you'll get the options.

albatorsk · Mar 31, 2016, 12:54 PM

Thank you! I can't believe I didn't see that before. For some reason, I didn't register that it was a collapsed section of the DHCP Server options page that could be expanded.

jimp · Mar 31, 2016, 12:56 PM

Yeah that part is a bit confusing since the other collapsed areas are hidden behind "advanced" buttons so it isn't consistent, that may need to be re-thought for 2.3.1. The difference is that it's a lot of options that also make sense as their own section, rather than being handled like the others.

Maybe it should be open with an advanced button of its own.