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April 14th, 2025 06:31
How to make loop over nics when using network pxe boot?
I have Dell PowerEdge R730 and R620 series servers, each equipped with multiple add-on NICs. When booting in Legacy PXE mode, the system only attempts PXE boot from the first NIC in the boot order and ignores the remaining interfaces. Since I often don’t know in advance which NIC will have an active connection, I have to manually adjust the boot order and repeatedly reboot until I find the correct interface.
In UEFI boot mode, it’s possible to specify a maximum of four NICs for PXE boot, but even this can be inconvenient, as my servers often have 8 to 10 interfaces. On other servers I’ve used, PXE boot automatically cycles through all available NIC interfaces without manual intervention.
Does Dell provide a setting or solution to enable this automatic NIC traversal behavior during PXE boot on these server models? Any guidance or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!