Deployment Solution

Hi all, we are using DS6.9 sp4 and Opentftpserver. Since going from Dos boot images to winpe we find that that the boot image oftens fails to download. It starts downloading white progress bar at the bottom of screen and then stops  with boot image error.

This happens randomly but the busier the network (ie time of day) the more frequent it fails.

We changed from the Altiris tftp server to opentftpserver as when we imaged multiple computers the boot image download time increased with each connected computer.

As we are an education environment and are frequently imaging computers this is becoming non workable with the failing boot download.

Can anyone offer another solution - does DS7.1 handle this better?

My networks guys just keep saying TFTP is hopeless and drops packets randomly - I am not a networks person but do look after the configuration of our altiris server.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks, cat

TFTP is not a very robust protocol, by design.  There's not a lot you can do about that, though we did once try to make it multicast.

One suggestion: see if you can use LinuxPE instead.  It's blazing fast, just a bit harder (lots) getting drivers.

OpenTFTP increased speed in our tests, but if it's not working, maybe you need to go back to DS's MTFTP.  The M stands for Multicast, so it does have multicast support, which, again, MIGHT help when things are busy.  But when things are busy, if the LAN is dropping packets, not a lot we can do about that.  :(