Not a sysadmin, just a new IT support worker tasked with figuring out how to mass deploy windows, so forgive me for probably missing things that may be obvious etc. I've succesfully figured out 99% of this whole thing - when a client sucessfully boots the lite touch image, then things a perfect.
No the issue is that 9/10 times, the boot times out, error code 0x80074e66. i have to reboot the client a dozen times until eventually it works. i'll dump as much info as i can and hopefully it helps illuminate something.
setup:
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hosts the wds server and a dedicated dhcp server ( v2.5.2 specifically). configured to only respond to known clients (how i want it) and with options 60, 66 and 67 are set. they are obviously correct as the setup works, sometimes. we have a primary dhcp server for our actual general use, also known clients only, but the client is not set up in that server. wireshark and server logs show that everything here is working as expected (options, nextserver, bootfile, etc. all in the ack packet).
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is the client in this case. i've read this thread ( and the community post linked in it and as far as i can understand there is no benefit to me using an IP helper here. frankly, even if it were to be an improvement, i want to resolve and understand what is going on with the existing dhcp solution.
on a successful boot (visual observations and wireshark inspection):
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the dhcp server responds to the client wanting to network boot. IP is assigned, options are in the packet.
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there is a bunch of tftp traffic a few requests, followed by 901 successful transfers of the bootimage my dhcp options point to.
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the client progresses to a second screen stating WDS Boot Manager version 0800, client IP , server IP is , server name EDV-31 (all correct). press enter for network boot service.
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pressing enter results in ProxyDHCP request and ack packets with the new bootimage bootmgfw.efi
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followed immediately by a bunch of tftp traffic downloading the lite touch boot image.
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the client shows the lite touch image downloading after a brief moment of showing a screen saying Windws Deployment Services Contacting Server
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everything continues to install perfectly with 100% success rate if it gets to the point where the lite touch image begins to download
an unsuccesful boot:
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same, until the ProxyDHCP request and ack packets. the packets are the same, but instead of progressing: request > ack > tftp, it simply loops. request > ack > request > ack a bunch of times until the timeout error.
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if it does not begin the lite touch download immedaitely as above, it will always time out. there is no sometimes delay, or intermittent success after some wait. its immediate success or guaranteed timeout failure