PXE and Mac Authentication

[Michael Busse]

We're currently testing Mac Authentication out in one of our departments, and right off hand it's working great. We're primarily using HP2650 switches which authenticate against a windows IAS.

We have a problem when it comes to PXE booting the clients. The PXE boot times out the first 1-minute cycle, and wont be able to contact the DHCP server until the second attempt (after 1+ minute). We're assuming this is due to the NIC being reset during POST, and have to re-authenticate and therefore times out during the first attempt (this does seem like a tad long authentication process though).

We got various clients, all displaying this behaviour. The newest client type is DC7700's. BIOS updates does not help.

Does anyone have a solution to this?

[Matt Hobbs]

I would also think the authentication would quick enough not to affect this.

If you have spanning-tree eanbled, make sure the port is set to an edge-port. Also try disabling LACP, that will speed up the port going into a forwarding state.

[Michael Busse]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a go :)

[Michael Busse]

Tried disabling both LACP and spanning tree. Did not help. I appreciate the suggestions though, thank you :)