UCS C-Series PXE Boot VLAN

[mamoth100]

Trying to do Auto Deploy for VMware and need the C-Series (in this case a UCS C480 M5) to boot from PXE. However, I don't see a way to specify a VLAN ID for the PXE boot.

Generally, on other companies servers, I'll enter the BIOS of the network card to set the VLAN there. But it doesn't prompt me for that. I also don't see anything in the BIOS to set it either.

I'm booting in Legacy mode as required and it does try to get an IP but in our environment, it won't unless I can specify a VLAN ID. The adapter I'm working with is an Intel X550 which is the onboard card. There is no FIs involved, just a stand alone server.

Any help on how to set this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Greetings.

The limited option ROMs for iSCSI and PXE boot generally don't allow you to  specify vlans.

You would normally need to set the switch port as access to get the frames tagged with the right vlan, which limits your use of the same port for other trunk purposes.

The vic cards in UCSM get around this by using a native vlan flag for the specific pxe vlan, but that obviously won't help your scenario.

You're hitting a basic pxe option rom limitation that applies to most nic vendors.

Kirk...

[mamoth100]

Thank you for the reply.

I also thought about leaving the port as a trunk and setting the native VLAN to the PXE boot VLAN.