Anyone using Oracle virtual box for their V labs?

Snow.bros

I am trying to experiment on WDS, I am struggling to get client computer to do a PXE boot using Oracle Virtual Box, I have tried to change the boot order but there is no option to PXE.

Does any have any experience on the above? Please feel free to share.

Shdwmage

From a security perspective I won't use PXE boot. It always goes for the closest PXE server. A cleaver hacker could put themselves on the same switch and have higher priority than your real PXE server.

unfbilly11

I am using Virtual Box for my lab setup as well, and I also had difficulty doing this. Make sure that "Network" is set as priorty 1 in the boot order, that's the PXE boot. If you don't have a "Network" option, you are probably using an old version of Virtual Box. My PXE boot saw my WDS server and DHCP server and was handed an IP correctly, and then just crashed. I didn't really spend too much time on it after that because everything looked like it was configured correctly, I just kinda chalked it up to using Virtual Box and pfSense to causing some kind of problem.

Snow.bros

Thanks for the replies guys!

@Shdwmage I want to use the PXE boot to test if I can use WDS to deploy an image. The server is not exposed to the internet.

@Unfbilly11 I managed to change the boot order to boot to the Network. When I boot the client computer it does not get an IP address as it does not see the DHCP server.

unfbilly11

Are you using the same NIC on the client machine as you do on the DHCP server? I mean from within Virtual Box....Any DHCP errors in event viewer on the DHCP server?

unfbilly11

Just an update to my earlier post...maybe it will help you or someone in the future... I looked into this more this evening and I resolved my problem with Virtual Box and my WDS server by changing the TFTP settings on my WDS server. Before, I was getting an error message right after connecting to my DHCP server. I changed the TFTP maximum block size to 512 (the lowest it will go) and unchecked "Enable Variable Window Extension" and I was able to boot to my WDS and install an image.

Snow.bros

unfbilly11 wrote: »

Are you using the same NIC on the client machine as you do on the DHCP server? I mean from within Virtual Box....Any DHCP errors in event viewer on the DHCP server?

Yes, I will have a look at it.

unfbilly11 wrote: »

I changed the TFTP maximum block size to 512 (the lowest it will go) and unchecked "Enable Variable Window Extension" and I was able to boot to my WDS and install an image.

Noted that thanks for the reply.