Win 2k as DHCP Server or other suggestions for Stand Alone Ghosting?

[Kelemvor]

Howdy,

Here's the scenario. We use Ghost to Multicast images to PCs. Curretly the Ghost "server" (Win 2k Pro Desktop) is just hooked into our normal network like everything else. We give the session a name and the other PCs, also on the network as normal, connect to it.

Problem is this kills our network because these have to be done right next to the people working and such. So, we're looking for a way to get the Ghost "Server" off the network and use it stand alone.

First option we thought of was to get a router, use the DHCP it has, and go from there. Problem when we tried it was that the cheapie routers ($<40 Best Buy or wherever) had so many lost packets and such that it just didn't work well. And we don't have any high end routers to use.

Second option we thought of was to turn the Windows 2k Pro machine (Ghost Server) into a DHCP Server, uplink it to a hub/switch, and then connect the rest of the machines to the normal ports. Problem is we can't figure out if Win 2k can be set to act as a DHCP server that works well and is reliable. (any ideas?)

Third option is we heard that the Ghost Multicast program can be set to be it's own DHCP server to assign IPs but we've never attempted this and don't know how it works.

We are using Ghost 6.5.

Any help or ideas would be great.

Thanks.

 

[loup garou]

No access to a copy of a MS Server OS? NT or newer will do DHCP.
Good idea to separate that from your network. Ghosting machines over a network can KILL your throughput. 🙂

 

[stash]

I'm pretty sure Ghost 6.5 includes the ability to do a unicast. You may have to go to 7.0 to get that though...

With a unicast, you could still have multiple machines connect to the ghost session, but the data would only be sent to those machines connecting, rather than every NIC on the segment. I used to do this all the time with up to about 50-60 workstations at a time, and nobody else on the network ever noticed a thing.

 

[Kelemvor]

Looks like Unicast is in 7.5 and later. How does it work exactly? Read a bit on Symantec's site and I'm not 100% clear on how a Multicast and Unicast are different....

 

[stash]

Unicast is definitely in 7.0.

The way I understood it was a multicast would send packets to every device on the segment, whereas a unicast would send the packets only the machines joining the session.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Just a thought, we're considering using USB key drives to ghost workstations. If the BIOS on your machines supports booting from there, you completely eliminate the network. Not really an answer to the question you asked, but something to consider.

 

[Kelemvor]

The wonderful images we use a multiple gigs in size. No way they'd fit on a USB drive. We'd need tons of them. However, we did try it by setting up Internet Connection Sharing with a dummy dial up account and it seemed to work OK. More testing to follow tomorrow so we'll see.

 

[stash]

One of the best features in Ghost Enterprise edition is the ability to push out an image to every computer on your network remotely.

Why would you want to go around and boot off a USB drive (or even a boot CD for that matter), when you can sit at one central machine and remotely ghost any machine or machines you want?

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
The wonderful images we use a multiple gigs in size. No way they'd fit on a USB drive. We'd need tons of them. However, we did try it by setting up Internet Connection Sharing with a dummy dial up account and it seemed to work OK. More testing to follow tomorrow so we'll see.

I have a 200gig USB 2.0 disk, are you telling me that your system images wouldn't fit on it? 🙂

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
The wonderful images we use a multiple gigs in size. No way they'd fit on a USB drive. We'd need tons of them. However, we did try it by setting up Internet Connection Sharing with a dummy dial up account and it seemed to work OK. More testing to follow tomorrow so we'll see.

I have a 200gig USB 2.0 disk, are you telling me that your system images wouldn't fit on it? 🙂

Thought you meant a Flash Drive type thing. Not just an external hard drive.

And we usually do multiple at one time so then we'd need a whole bunch of them and such.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I have to agree that networking seems the logical way to do the job, just pointing out that large USB drives are readily available. 🙂

If you want a DHCP server for W2K workstation, here's one I've used during a development project, worked like a champ. Magik DHCP Server costs a whopping $15, probably not enough to break the bank. 🙂

 

[SoulAssassin]

Originally posted by: STaSh
One of the best features in Ghost Enterprise edition is the ability to push out an image to every computer on your network remotely.

Why would you want to go around and boot off a USB drive (or even a boot CD for that matter), when you can sit at one central machine and remotely ghost any machine or machines you want?

Because most of our desktop admins spend 90% of their time out in the users areas anyway. Reimaging a machine means either drag the image across the regular network which in theory slows down the production network as a whole on the affected subnets, generally takes a long period of time (regular user connections are 10mb) and timeouts are frequent. Boot cds aren't an option as they are removed for security. We have a private network in our area for ghosting new deployments of large quantities of machines, but who wants to drag a pc across the building just to ghost it? A USB drive can be kept on the admins key ring, is bootable, and the file transfer happens completely off the network.

For the record, I'm talking about something like this.