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Tech Tip - CA Client Automation: Multiple Boot servers on same Subnet for different ITCM environments

Matt_Godfrey

Matt_GodfreyJul 21, 2015 09:47 AM

Anon Anon

Anon AnonJul 23, 2015 06:39 PM

  • 1.  Tech Tip - CA Client Automation: Multiple Boot servers on same Subnet for different ITCM environments

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jul 08, 2015 07:40 AM

    CA Client Automation Tech Tip by Richard Little, Principal Support Engineer for Wednesday 8th July 2015

     

    I was recently asked if there was a way to have 2 scalability servers acting as boot servers on the same subnet but for different ITCM environments. In the example given there were 2 companies that share the same branch office. They both want to use OSIM but cannot have the other boot server responding to their PC's PXE requests.

     

    The good news is that this is very easy to configure.

     

    There is a configuration parameter for OSIM specifically designed for this type of situation

    • Use answer control list
      • If UseACL is set to 0, the Boot Server will answer all PXE requests from known and unknown computers immediately.
      • If set to 1, it answers known computers immediately but unknown computers only after a period of retries.
      • If set to 2 it answers known computers only.

     

    The default configuration is 1 which is not suitable for the scenario above as both boot servers can answer all PXE requests on the subnet.

    For this scenario the correct setting is UseACL=2

    Each Boot server will now only respond to PXE requests from computers that are already known to the boot server.

    This does however mean that the OSIM targets will not automatically be populated as OSIM targets when they PXE boot instead it is required to manually register the target PC with the boot server.

    This is achieved in 1 of 2 ways

    • New Computer pre-registration
    • OS Installation Wizard

     

    New Computer pre-registration

    1. Right click on All Computers and Select "New Computer"

    2. Select the "Use OS Installation Management to setup a new operating system" Checkbox and enter the mac address

    3. Define the rest of the values and complete the wizard selecting an OS image and the scalability server
    4. When the wizard is finished the Computer will not only exist in All Computes but also will be a registered OSIM target

     

    OS Installation Wizard

    1. Right click on a computer under "All Computers" and select "OS Installation..."

    2. Complete the wizard selecting the OS Image and Boot Server
    3. Once completed the PC will be registered to the Boot server as an OSIM target

     

    Using either of these methods will register the PC to the boot server and allow it to be targeted for an OSIM job



  • 2.  Re: Tech Tip - CA Client Automation: Multiple Boot servers on same Subnet for different ITCM environments

    Posted Jul 21, 2015 09:47 AM

    Good Tip Rich



  • 3.  Re: Tech Tip - CA Client Automation: Multiple Boot servers on same Subnet for different ITCM environments

    Posted Jul 23, 2015 06:39 PM

    Nice one Rich.