Ghosting problem - DHCP

[dvornik]

We recently moved to a new building and have a problem with our Dell 420 boxes. We can't ghost them through multicast. We get a DHCP error when we try to connect to a multicast session. All other machines ghost without problems. We are kind of short of IPs on the floor (4 available), so our theory is that the Cisco Catalyst router has all the IPs leased, but for some reason other machines can get IPs.

These dells have built-in 3com cards that are known to have some issues with certain routers.

 

[Xemus]

What error are you getting? You said it was a DHCP error, but does it show up in the Ghost session or on the server?And what version of Ghost are you running? Jordan MCP, A+
Assistant Network Administrator

 

[dvornik]

The latest ghost (7.5? i'm not at work now). No, the session doesn't show up. The error message goes along these lines: "Could not obtain IP, problem communicating with DHCP server, possible network configuration problem". We tried different drivers and older disks. The only way that works is release IPs, take note, and assign them manually on a floppy.

 

[Angelshadowx]

First thing I would be doing in your place, would be to swap over to internal IPs and get a larger range (192.168.x.y /16 /24) can give you 65,000 / 256 IPs.

Though I'm pretty sure you can make a dhcp range in the multicast server of Ghost, though it has been a while since I've looked into it.

 

[dvornik]

We do have internal IPs, it's just that they allocate 256 (I believe) to each floor and our floor is almost full. We can ghost via TCP-IP one-by-one, but it just can't get IP from DHCP server for some reason.

 

[richgill]

What hub(s) are your PCs connecting to? Are they Cisco switches? If so, is PortFast enabled? If not the Span-Tree stuff takes about 30 seconds to realise it is just a PC connected (and not a router, hub etc). This is enough time for your DHCP client to give up - and so Ghost will fail.

 

[dvornik]

Oh, that sounds very promising. Yes it's CISCO Catalist switches (I made a mistake about the router) and they are managed by people from another department, we don't know much about them. Could you give more information or links on that subject, please? I don't know about Port-Fast or Span-Tree, but if there's an article on how to change it we could do it - my boss has access to the switches.

 

[dvornik]

Also, there's a bunch of macs on the floor, just mentioning this in case switch configuration changes would affect them.

 

[richgill]

Certainly Sir! There's a load of info about PortFast on the Cisco web site. Have a look at

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/top_issues/lan/473_12.html

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/12.html

This is most likely your problem as Catalyst Switches have PortFast disabled by default. I use the Java console to access the switch, but you can use the command line to enable PortFast. btw There is no downside to enabling PortFast if you know that a PC will be connected but you probably want to leave it on if you are connecting another switch.

Happy Ghosting!

 

[dvornik]

Thanks for the links. We do have other switches, unfortunately, some small 4-port and a couple of large ones with only a couple of devices connected to them. Can we do it according to port numbers? Also, is there a way to increase the time-out for Ghost?

 

[richgill]

If you can connect the PCs to another switch it is worth trying - but you may have the same problem. (A hub would be no problem).

NB It is the DHCP client that is timing out not Ghost.