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Legacy DHCP configuration

Preparing the DHCP server (Windows)

The 2X ThinClientServer is shipped with DHCP Helper application as standard. This is included in both the Standard and Enterprise editions. It is encouraged to use the bundled DHCP Helper. The use of such a utility is sometimes not desired due to various reasons:

The 2X ThinClientServer was installed on the DHCP Server/Domain Controller
The DHCP server is already handling PXE booting for other software in your network and the admin policy is to use the 3rd party software
The PXE stack installed on the Thin Client is prior to version 2.0 or else has some incompatibilities.

It is IMPORTANT that if you are serving settings directly via your DHCP server, that you do NOT send out conflicting settings by the bundled ThinClientServer. It is important that you accordingly disable the service or use the Whitelist/Blacklist functionality to avoid conflicting multiple broadcasts which can give sporadic errors.

If you will NOT be booting ANY thin clients over the network, you can proceed directly to Part B.

Part A – Booting over the Network

If your thin client will be booting via PXE or Etherboot, you have to configure your DHCP server to tell the thin clients where the TFTP server is located in order to download 2X ThinClientOS:

If you are running a Windows DHCP server, go to Start > Administrative Tools > DHCP on the DHCP server. The DHCP configuration will start.

Screenshot 100: DHCP administration utility

Right-click the “Scope > Scope Options” node and select “Configure options...”. If you have multiple subnets, be sure to select the scope options of the subnet in which you wish to use 2X ThinClientServer.

Screenshot 101: DHCP scope options

In the scope options dialog, browse down to “066 Boot Server Host Name” and enter the IP address of your TFTP/2X ThinClientServer machine (these will be different ONLY if you are using a third-party TFTP server).
Browse to the “067 Bootfile Name” option and enter a String Value of “pxelinux.0”.

Firewall Issues:

Please note that for a DHCP Server to provide TCP/IP settings to the Thin Client successfully, it will be necessary to ensure that:

1. UDP connections on port 67 to the DHCP Server can be established.

2. UDP connections on port 68 to the Thin Client can be established.

Please note that for a 3rd Party TFTP Server to serve 2X ThinClientOS to Thin Clients successfully, it will be necessary to ensure that UDP connections on port 69 to the 3rd Party TFTP Server can be established.

Part B – Booting from media

The 2X ThinClientOS has the capability to locate the 2X ThinClientServer in one of 2 ways:

using DHCP
using DNS

using DHCP

Screenshot 102: DHCP administration utility

If you are running a Windows DHCP server, go to Start > Administrative Tools > DHCP on the DHCP server. The DHCP configuration will start.

Screenshot 103: DHCP Predefined Options

Right-click on DHCP server and select "Set Predefined Options..."

Screenshot 104: Predefined Options dialog

In the Predefined options dialog, choose option class "DHCP Standard Options" and click the "Add" button.

Screenshot 105: Option Type dialog

You will need fill in the followings values in the Option Type dialog:
- "Name:" field type "thinsrv"
- "Data type" field choose "IP Address" and tick the "array" checkbox
- "Code" field type "193"

"Description" field type "2X ThinClientServer".

Screenshot 106: Option Type dialog

Click OK. The server options should now look as shown in the screenshot. Click OK to exit the dialog.

Screenshot 107: DHCP scope options correctly configured

In the main DHCP administrator application, the right pane should show the Scope Options as in the screenshot above.
1. using DNS

Screenshot 108: DNS configuration

If you are running the Microsoft Windows DNS server service, go to Start > Administrative Tools > DNS. The DNS configuration will start.
Go to the node Forward Lookup Zones and highlight your domain (for example, internal.2x.com).
Right-click and select “New Host (A) ...” to create a new “A” record.
Enter “thinserver”, and the IP address of the 2X ThinClientServer machine. Click “Add Host” to enter the record. Note: Ensure that the DNS suffix assigned to the machine by the DHCP server matches the domain selected in “2” above.
1. You can confirm that the previous 4 steps have been performed correctly by executing, from a command prompt:

ping thinserver.internal.2x.com

...(replacing “internal.2x.com” with the domain selected in step “2” above).

If the ping command does NOT receive a response, please review the above steps carefully and identify where you could have made an error with the configuration steps.

If the ping command receives a response, you are ready to proceed to the next step.

Firewall Issues:

Please note that for a DNS Server to resolve host and domain names successfully, it will be necessary to ensure that TCP connections on port 53 to the DNS Server can be established.

Preparing the DHCP server (Linux)

The 2X ThinClientServer is shipped with DHCP Helper application as standard. This is included in both the Standard and Enterprise editions. The use of such a utility is sometimes not desired due to various reasons:

The 2X ThinClientServer was installed on the DHCP Server/Domain Controller
The DHCP server is already handling PXE booting for other software in your network and the admin policy is to use the 3rd party software
The PXE stack installed on the Thin Client is prior to version 2.0 or else has some incompatibilities.

If your thin client will be booting via PXE or Etherboot, you have to configure your DHCP server to tell the thin clients where the TFTP server is located in order to download 2X ThinClientOS. To do this you will need to add the highlighted settings in the configuration file for your DHCP server. We are providing a sample configuration which you can use as a template. The text in gray is required to enable PXE booting with 2X ThinClientServer. The text in red should be replaced with the IP address of where the 2X ThinClientServer is installed. The text in blue should be replaced with the IP address of where the TFTP server is installed. All IP addresses and ranges should be changed appropriately for your network.

option domain-name "2x.com";

option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;

option routers 192.168.0.1;

option thinsrv code 193 = array of ip-address;

ddns-update-style none;

default-lease-time 3600;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

range 192.168.0.128 192.168.0.254;

default-lease-time 3600;

max-lease-time 172800;

option thinsrv 192.168.0.10;

option routers 192.168.0.1;

next-server 192.168.0.10;

option tftp-server-name "192.168.0.10";

# required by Intel PXE-2.1

server-identifier 192.168.0.10;

filename "/pxelinux.0";

}

Preparing the DNS server (optional)

If one or more of your thin clients will be booting from CD-ROM or hard disk, you have to configure an “A” record in your DNS server called “thinserver”, which points to the 2X ThinClientServer machine. Please consult the documentation of the DNS software that was shipped with your Linux distribution.

Configuring Time Synchronization (optional)

If your users are using the 2X desktop, they would want to have the time on their clock updated to the exact time. This can be set on your DHCP server by following the same instructions as in the section Preparing the DHCP server. Add an entry for Option 42 in the scope which is the IP address of an NTP server on your network. If you are in a Windows domain, the Domain Controller by default acts as your domain’s NTP server to keep the clients in sync.