Using Altiris without using PXE at all

bwilkerson's picture

Altiris DS 6.9 (plan on installing SP1 next week)

I am being told by my network manager that I need to make Altiris work without using PXE. The reasoning being is he is trying to set up a Citrix Provisioning Server to use for Thin Clients and Virtual Workstations. That also uses PXE and he has it set up so if the computer is set to boot to NIC/PXE it automatically pulls an image from the provisioning server. I am unsure if I can make these work together in any way and since he read that you can use Altiris on computers that do not support PXE he is set on making it work that way. I have tried to do some experimenting with using WinPE and embedded automation but I am not having any success. Now the only thing I can think of it could be the computer I am using which is a Dell Vostro 1510. We are a Dell shop and have the following model computers in production:

-Optiplex GX260
-OPtiplex GX270
-Optiplex GX280
-Optiplex GX620
-Optiplex 740
-Optiplex 745
-Latitude D6xx Laptops
-Vostro 1400 and Vostro 1510 Laptops

There are a couple mix and match models but those cover the majority. The Altiris DS was set up months ago and never used as my Network Manager was originally in charge of getting this to work. Since that he has been busy with other projects it recently got re-assigned to me and I am pretty lost. My Net Admin insists it worked in his tests using PXE back in September but now that he setup that other PXE services for CITRIX Altiris is broken. I am not sure if I should uninstall PXE and leave it off or re-install it and try to make it work with the CITRIX PXE. Please help me.

spazzzen's picture

Boot CD

If you can't use PXE, I would suggest a boot cd. They are easy to make and I have noticed WinPE loads faster from CD then PXE. Just make sure you set your jobs to boot to the default automation to work with the CD. I think you can even set it so it promps for you to insert the CD (not sure how that works, haven't tried it but I have seen the option).

carlsson's picture

PXE

you don't have to uninstall PXE just disable the PXE manager service on the DS that'll stop it.
or have a look at this link on how to configure the citrix environment

http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx115305

Hojiblanca

ianatkin's picture

Use MAC filtering

Hi,

You can use Altiris PXE services as this has MAC filtering built in. You can configure the PXE server to only respond to clients it knows about, or you can specifically configure the PXE server reply to specific MACs, or not to reply to specific MAC addresses.

You can probably filter out Virtual Workstations very easily using MAC filtering as their MACs follow a specific convention. Or you could just allow NICs following the Dell MAC convention?

Kind Regards,
Ian./

Ian Atkin
Senior Developer for the ICT Support Team,
Oxford University, UK