xerxes2985 Posted July 26, 2017 Report post Posted July 26, 2017 I am attempting to image a VM by PXE through VSphere. I can successfully PXE boot, but during the "loading files: boot.sdi" it is extremely slow. Then when it attempts to load the WIM, it just sits there. Any thoughts? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted August 10, 2017 Report post Posted August 10, 2017 I am trying to PXE boot a VM that is running on an ESXi, if that matters Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted January 31, 2018 Report post Posted January 31, 2018 On 7/26/2017 at 12:04 PM, xerxes2985 said: I am attempting to image a VM by PXE through VSphere. I can successfully PXE boot, but during the "loading files: boot.sdi" it is extremely slow. Then when it attempts to load the WIM, it just sits there. Any thoughts? OK, so this is still an issue. The network adapter for the Virtual Machine is Intel E1000e, Looking at SMSPXE.log, it takes about 15 minutes to load up "boot.sdi". Once that finally loads, now it just sits attempting to load the .wim. Inside that log I see the following messages stating Looking for bootimage LIB00017 Getting boot action for unknown machine: item key: 2046820352 SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:24 AM 4396 (0x112C) Prioritizing local MP http://hidingthename. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:24 AM 4396 (0x112C) Request using architecture 0. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:24 AM 4396 (0x112C) Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" DuplicateSMBIOS="0" DuplicateMACAddress="0" ItemKey="2046820352" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID/><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="" OfferIDTime="" PkgID="" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="" BootImageID="" Mandatory=""/></ClientIDReply> SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:25 AM 4396 (0x112C) Request retry. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:25 AM 4396 (0x112C) Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" DuplicateSMBIOS="0" DuplicateMACAddress="0" ItemKey="2046820352" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>e4306477-31e7-4e98-ae8b-5c8c0fa02d63</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="LIB200A7" OfferIDTime="1/11/2018 2:08:00 PM" PkgID="LIB000F8" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://hidingthename/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/LIB00017" BootImageID="LIB00017" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply> SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:25 AM 4396 (0x112C) 00:0C:29:F3:2A:C6, 44B74D56-8008-0282-C560-91A380F32AC6: found optional advertisement LIB200A7 SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:25 AM 4396 (0x112C) Getting boot action for unknown machine: item key: 2046820353 SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Prioritizing local MP http://hidingthename. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Request using architecture 9. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" DuplicateSMBIOS="0" DuplicateMACAddress="0" ItemKey="2046820353" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>068f4962-b83f-480d-a450-dc75c1a13cf3</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="LIB200A7" OfferIDTime="1/11/2018 2:08:00 PM" PkgID="LIB000F8" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://hidingthename/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/LIB00017" BootImageID="LIB00017" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply> SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) 00:0C:29:F3:2A:C6, 44B74D56-8008-0282-C560-91A380F32AC6: found optional advertisement LIB200A7 SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Looking for bootImage LIB00017 SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Prioritizing local MP http://hidingthename. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Prioritizing local MP http://hidingthename. SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Report Body: <ReportBody><ClientID>068f4962-b83f-480d-a450-dc75c1a13cf3</ClientID><StateMessage MessageTime="20180131173127.000000+000" SerialNumber="1"><ClientID>068f4962-b83f-480d-a450-dc75c1a13cf3</ClientID><Topic ID="PXE Boot Client" Type="601" IDType="601"/><State ID="100" Criticality="0"/><UserParameters Flags="32" Count="4"><Param>00:0C:29:F3:2A:C6</Param><Param>44B74D56-8008-0282-C560-91A380F32AC6</Param><Param>131.204.174.92</Param><Param>LIB</Param></UserParameters></StateMessage></ReportBody> SMSPXE 1/31/2018 11:31:27 AM 4396 (0x112C) Now, it is just sitting on loading files, and not moving. Any suggestions? What logs show the status of the .wim loading? Please help. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted January 31, 2018 Report post Posted January 31, 2018 Ok, so once switching my adapter to the vmxnet3 adapter it is working. However, now I get the following error. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted February 15, 2018 Report post Posted February 15, 2018 Any ideas??? The boot.sdi loads. Then the .WIM loads, and immediately after the bar gets to the end, the screenshot above occurs. I have loaded ALL of the VMWare Tools drivers into SCCM. I have updated the boot image to utilize the network drivers and storage drivers. Here is the hardware configuration: ESXi 5.5 VMNet3 Adapter Thanks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted February 15, 2018 Report post Posted February 15, 2018 Found a solution to the issue: From the website here: Apparently, the limitation is only applicable to VMWare ESXi. And in my testing, specifically 5.x. Once changing the value to 1432, and using EFI, imaging is working fine.http://www.bctechnet.com/vmware-pxe-limitations/ Quote This basically means that VMware cannot support RamDiskTFTPBlockSize being any bigger than 1432. This is a pretty big limitation since this affects our ability to reasonably support our physical machines and VMware machines at the same time. It also seems bad since VMware is the only vendor I can find that has this problem. It wouldn’t be a huge problem if at least supported 8192, but not even 2048 works. The only thing that is still ridiculously slow, is even attempting this using BIOS. Hope this helps someone who may come across this. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
anyweb Posted February 16, 2018 Report post Posted February 16, 2018 thanks for posting the solution ! i'm also seeing really slow network boot on some vmware workstation labs I have... it would be great to increase that speed somehow Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerxes2985 Posted February 16, 2018 Report post Posted February 16, 2018 11 minutes ago, anyweb said: thanks for posting the solution ! i'm also seeing really slow network boot on some vmware workstation labs I have... it would be great to increase that speed somehow You're welcome. What is interesting is that on an ESXi running 6.0 (haven't tried 6.5 yet) it was able to PXE and successfully image using the RamDiskTFTPBlockSize=16384. However the only part that was slow was trying to load boot.sdi. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
anyweb Posted February 16, 2018 Report post Posted February 16, 2018 mine is loading boot.sdi fine and even the boot wim, but it takes 20 minutes or so to load that boot wim, so it's painful Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
