[gPXE] problems booting gPXE

[Alexander,Jeff]

I work in a shop where we image hundreds of machines a day. Currently we are setup with a modified WDS server that serves up a PXElinux menu first and then redirects to WDS if no other option is chosen. WDS is only used to serve a customized WinPE image which then loads an HTA based menu. From there we choose what image to load on the device.

When we are at around 100 machines imaging concurrently, it takes significantly longer to pull down the WinPE image. Once that is done, Imaging the machine with a Ghost, WIM, or Altitis image is not nearly as affected. We suspect that the problem lies with using TFTP to pull down the WinPE image.

So when I found gPXE and its ability to use other protocols such as HTTP, I was very excited. I immediately setup a test server to try it out. I ran into few problems setting it all up and we began testing with live images.

What we discovered is that for about 80% of the various models we tested, everything worked as expected. But for the other 20%, various issues would arise. One model may not PXE boot at all, another may start to PXE boot but then give some cryptic error, etc.

A few specific issues that I wrote down are:

HP 8000 Elite Desktop - using gPXE, boots from WinPE 2.1 but not from WinPE 3.0 (very strange issue)
HP ProBook 6440b - using gPXE, when you choose to return control to WDS from PXElinux, will not boot from WDS

We mainly image HP and Dell machines. Current models only, not trying to image old machines.

Because of this, we can't implement gPXE as a production solution.

I know that gPXE is relatively new and is constantly being worked on. I am just wondering if there is anything I can do to help with resolving the issues we are seeing. When gPXE does work, it loads the PE image significantly faster than when using TFTP.

Thanks,
Jeff
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