PXE Boot - How to set a static IP (NO DHCP) when booting via PXE.

[Gene Laoyan]

We are testing PXE boot and we can can boot when we are in a segment with a DHCP server but can't when there is no DHCP server. My question is, how do you set a static IP on the PXE client to be able to boot to a PXE server?
Or is it even possible?
The server has the lates BIOS updated from the Maintenance CD 7.70.

Thanks
Gene Laoyan

[David Claypool]

You really can't. The network boot process has no way to know about an IP address.

If you are using HP's RDP, you will need to create a boot floppy with a static IP and use either a physical floppy or iLO Virtual Media to boot. Other products may have a similar feature.

[rick jones]

That is functionality presently available only on the Integrity servers via the EFI command dbprofile.

Can you use iLO virtual media instead? It wouldn't be testing PXE boot, but it would in theory get you booted.

[Gene Laoyan]

I was afraid of that. Oh well. Our datacenter doesn't have DHCP so we're pretty much hosed. We'll look into settup a DHCP server specifically for our pool of MAC adresses to give them the specific IP Addresses that they need, kind of like dedicating the DHCP for only our MAC Addresses.

Thanks

[rick jones]

A quick and dirty DHCP server setup isn't all _that_ bad. (Under Linux at least, I cannot speak to Windows) Best if you can keep it contained to a known set of MAC addresses or you may find all sorts of kit out on your network which was trying to DHCP :) One of the other things supplied by the DHCP server is the "next server" IP which would be (IIRC) a tftp server, but since the client has an IP and gateway IP by that point, the tftp server doesn't have to be local to the subnet/broadcast domain.

[Gene Laoyan]

Yeah, we're just going to open a pool of 45 IP addresses in our segment and set them all static to the appropriate server/MAC. 45 IP's reserved for 45
MAC's. Sounds pretty safe.
We'll only enable the dhcp service when we need it.