Using PXE boot for restores
Given our current covid lockdown status, it would be nice to be able to do restores remotely instead of going to PC with a USB key. So I've been experimenting with PXE boot options. I built a Virtual Box VM with no OS installed and set it to network boot. Then I used the PXE option in Backupper 6.2. That worked well - I was able to restore an image to the VM, and doing it this way, there's less worry about drivers on the target machine.
The problem is this: if machines are configured to always try PXE boot first when they are in their normal install location, then any PC in the subnet that happens to be rebooted while some other PC is being imaged will end up doing an unwanted PXE boot. The usual suggestion is to put any machines in need of imaging in a special subnet, but that doesn't fit the image in place operation we're considering. So it would be nice if there could be a way of controlling whether the PXE server would answer, perhaps based on hardware address. (Yes, I know that won't work if we're crossing subnets.)
I thought the PXE server also was a DHCP server, but when I disconnected the network cable from the machine running the tests, the VM did not get an address by DHCP. Maybe that's just a quirk of the Virtual Box networking, and maybe it doesn't matter in the real world.
Also, when I pulled the network cable, registered Technician Pro warned that it was an expired demo. USB boot media doesn't seem to do this when it doesn't have network access, so not a big deal.
The problem is this: if machines are configured to always try PXE boot first when they are in their normal install location, then any PC in the subnet that happens to be rebooted while some other PC is being imaged will end up doing an unwanted PXE boot. The usual suggestion is to put any machines in need of imaging in a special subnet, but that doesn't fit the image in place operation we're considering. So it would be nice if there could be a way of controlling whether the PXE server would answer, perhaps based on hardware address. (Yes, I know that won't work if we're crossing subnets.)
I thought the PXE server also was a DHCP server, but when I disconnected the network cable from the machine running the tests, the VM did not get an address by DHCP. Maybe that's just a quirk of the Virtual Box networking, and maybe it doesn't matter in the real world.
Also, when I pulled the network cable, registered Technician Pro warned that it was an expired demo. USB boot media doesn't seem to do this when it doesn't have network access, so not a big deal.
Comments
"when I pulled the network cable, registered Technician Pro warned that it was an expired demo. "---Did you mean that you disconnect the network of the computer that you run PXE? or the client computer?
https://www.aomeitech.com/kb/backupper/failed-to-install.html