Using the Manage Boot Devices utility
The Manage Boot Devices Utility is an optional method for providing IP and boot information (boot device) to target devices. It is an alternative to using the traditional DHCP, PXE, and TFTP methods. When the target device starts, it obtains the boot information directly from the boot device. With this information, the target device is able to locate, communicate, and boot from the appropriate Citrix Provisioning server. After user authentication, the server provides the target device with its vDisk image.
Tip:
A problem occurs when booting a target device using the Boot ISO method. See the Citrix Knowledge Center for more information.
The following boot devices are supported:
- USB
- CD-ROM (ISO)
- Hard Disk Partition
Wireless NICs are not supported.
Warning:
When selecting an entire hard drive as a boot device, all existing disk partitions are erased and re-created with a single active partition. The targeted partition is reserved as a boot device, and is not used by the operating system or by data.
When a hard disk partition is selected as boot device, the selected disk partition data is deleted and set as an active partition. This active partition becomes the boot device.
Configuring boot devices
Boot devices are configured using the Boot Device Management utility. This wizard-like application enables you to quickly program boot devices.
After installing the boot device, complete the procedures that follow. Consider the following:
- The vDisk must be previously formatted and ready before running BDM.exe.
- If you are using the target device hard disk drive as the boot device, copy BDM. exe from the product installation directory on the server, into the product installation directory on the target device.
- The target device settings in the Citrix Provisioning console are set to boot from the vDisk. The actual device is set to boot from hard disk first.
- From the Citrix Provisioning product installation directory, run BDM.exe. The Boot Device Management window opens and the Specify the Login Server page appears.
- Under Server Lookup, select the radio button that describes the method to use to retrieve Provisioning Server boot information:
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Use DNS to find the Provisioning Server from which to boot. If this option is selected and the Use DHCP to retrieve Device IP option is selected your DHCP server must be configured to provide the DNS Server.
Note: The boot device uses Host name plus DHCP option 15 (Domain Name, which is optional) as the FQDN to contact the DNS server to resolve the IP address.
If you are using high availability, specify up to four Provisioning Servers for the same host name on your DNS server.
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Use the static IP address of the Provisioning Server from which to boot. If you select this option, click Add to enter the following Provisioning Server information:
- IP Address
- Port (default is 6910)
In high availability implementations, enter up to four Citrix Provisioning servers. If you are not using high availability, enter only one. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to sort the Provisioning Servers boot order. The first provisioning server listed is the server that the target device attempts to boot from.
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- Click Next. The Set Options dialog appears.
- Configure the following local boot options, then click Next:
- Verbose Mode. Enable/disables the displaying of extensive boot and diagnostic information. Verbose mode can be helpful when debugging issues.
- Interrupt Safe Mode; enable/disable for debugging issues. This mode is sometimes required for drivers that exhibit timing or boot behavior problems.
- Advanced Memory Support. Enables/disables the address extensions, to match your operating system settings. This option is enabled by default. Disable it only if your target device is hanging or behaving erratically in early boot phase.
- Network Recovery Method. Use this method to restore the network connection or to reboot from a hard drive if the target device loses connection to the Provisioning Server. Specify how long (in seconds) to wait to make this connection.
- Login Polling Timeout; in general, start with values of one second for each of the polling and general timeouts. Extend the login polling timeout when using 3DES encryption. Further extend the timers based on workload. A reasonable setting for 100 target devices running triple DES in the network would be three seconds.
- Login General Timeout; a reasonable setting for 100 target devices running triple DES in the network would be 10 seconds for the General Timeout.
- In the Burn the Boot Device dialog, configure the target device IP. If the Use DNS to find the Server option is selected and your DHCP service does not provide option 6 (DNS Server), enter the following required information:
- Primary DNS Server Address
- Secondary DNS Server Address
- Domain Name
- Configure the Boot Device properties.
- Add an active boot partition. Use this option to add a boot partition. Note: A boot partition is required if you are booting from the device’s hard drive. For example, when selecting a
XENPVDISKboot device with small partition or partition offset. - Select the boot device from the list of devices. If a partition offset size is set, you are prompted to confirm the destination size. Type Yes (case sensitive) to continue.
- Add an active boot partition. Use this option to add a boot partition. Note: A boot partition is required if you are booting from the device’s hard drive. For example, when selecting a
- If applicable, configure Media Properties.
- Click Burn. A message appears to acknowledge that the boot device was successfully created. If selecting ISO format, use your CD burning software to burn the ISO image.
- Click Exit to close the utility.
- Boot the target device and enter the BIOS Setup. Under the Boot Sequence, move the boot device to the top of the list of bootable devices. Save the change, then boot the target device.
After the boot device is programmed, configure a target device boot sequence using the console’s Target Device Disk Properties dialog. These boot behaviors are used after a target device connects to a provisioning server. The console allows multiple vDisk images to be assigned to a target device. How this vDisks boot depends upon the selected boot behavior.
When configuring the BIOS to for the boot device (either USB or ISO image), the NIC PXE option must be enabled. The PXE boot option is required in order for the NIC Option ROM to stay resident in memory during the pre-boot process. This way, UNDI is available to the boot device to properly initialize the NIC. Otherwise, the boot device displays the ‘API not found’ message.