VMware VMs and DHCP issues for PXE

[sumghuy27]

Hello, have an issue with VMs that PXE boot are not receiving a DHCP Discover response and timeout.

-All VMs on vSphere ESXi 5.5 hosts and on the same vSwitch, vLAN and using VMXNET3 NICs,

I have a Windows Server 2008R2 DHCP server and VMs that PXE boot and require an IP through DHCP to complete the boot

process.

The PXE devices send a DHCP Discover, but never receive a response and timeout.

No event logs thrown on DHCP server, both Windows logs and DHCP audit logs

What I have tried:

Verified there are no MAC filters

Verified there a plenty of IPs to lease available

Applied all the latest Windows DHCP related Hotfixes

Removing the DHCP server role and reinstalling the role with a fresh configuration

Ran Wireshark capture on DHCP server never received  DHCP packets, although this could be because of the Promiscuous mode setting on the vSwitch

-Is there anything on the VMware side that could be preventing DHCP packets from being received?

[admin]

I've done a Windows Deployment Services (WDS) setup in the virtual environment before (but vSwitch didn't have any uplink adapter), and I didn't face the DHCP lease problem. I didn't even have to set to set Promiscous mode to Accept. I was able to PXE boot and perform remote installations.

As no packets are received at your DHCP server, possibly there is another DHCP server servicing the requests? Firewall (DHCP server/service) is a basic suspect too, but worth a look too. May be you can try:

1. Remove uplink from the vSwitch and have a VM power on to PXE.

2. Have a VM with OS already installed under the same vSwitch, and try to acquire DHCP IP address while OS is running.

Hope that helps.

[virtualdylan]

sumghuy, did you ever find a solution to this?  I'm running into the same issue.  I found one post saying to connect the "Legacy Adapter", but when I'm adding a new NIC, that's not an option (only E1000 and VMXNET 3 are).

Thanks

Dylan