Understanding DHCP Options 60, 66, and 67 for WDS Setup

An illustration depicting DHCP options with gears, a document, a computer screen, and a phone, against a blue background representing a Windows operating system.

DHCP refers to Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Basically, it’s a mechanism that assigns IP addresses to computers dynamically. DHCP is a role (service) running on a server machine in the network in order to assign dynamic IP addresses to hosts. For some information on BOOTP Vendor Extensions and DHCP Options, and for automatic IP Assignment, and Synology Surveillance365: Cloud-Based Camera Management Without an On-Premises Surveillance Server.

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) enables you to deploy Windows operating systems over the network, which means that you do not have to install each operating system directly from a CD or DVD.

You may also be interested in this guide “How to deploy Windows using ADK, MDT, and WDS“. In this article, you will learn about the WDS and DHCP Deployment Scenarios: Configure DHCP Options 60, 66, and 67.

See the following guide Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Here are some other vital links “how to install Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol on Windows Server 2019, and how to configure DHCP: Post-deployment of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol“.

Why do we need DHCP Options?

DHCP options enable administrators to specify additional DHCP parameters in the form of pre-defined, vendor-specific information that is stored in the options field of a DHCP message. When the DHCP message is sent to clients on the network, it provides vendor-specific configuration and service information.

WDS also supports unicast, multicast transmissions, and scheduled casting. By using multicast, we can send one image over the network to multiple computers.

With scheduled casting, we can transfer images at a certain time or after a certain number of computers have contacted the WDS server. This way we can deploy our images at off-peak times. We can configure our WDS server to respond to clients in three different ways.

Not Respond: We can enable this if we don’t want the WDS to respond to client requests.
Respond to Known: In this method, Active Directory (AD) needs to be available. All devices should be able to contact WDS. This way we can prevent unknown computers from accessing WDS. For devices that are not part of the Domain, they can be pre-staged. By pre-staging our devices, we pre-create the computer account in AD with the relevant names, therefore when the pre-staged computer contacts WDS, it will supply its existing computer name and in this way the WDS server will allow the imaging process.
Respond to All: Any computer that requests the image from WDS will receive the image.

Configure DHCP Options

To configure the DHCP options, launch the DHCP Manager as shown below. From the Server Manager, there are two ways to launch this. Simply click on the Tool menu and Select Server Manager or right-click on the DHCP server node, on the server, it is installed. Click on DHCP Manager.

Screenshot of the Windows Server Manager interface showing DHCP settings, with a highlighted 'DHCP Manager' option in the Tools menu.

This will open the DHCP Console as shown below. Expand the DHCP server

Screenshot of a DHCP management console displaying TechDarchive.techdirect.local in the contents section.

Expand IPv4 and click on Server Option. Then, click on Configure Options

Screenshot of a DHCP management console showing the options for configuring server options in a menu.

This will open the DHCP Server options as shown below

Screen showing server options with available settings for time offset, router, time server, and name servers. Data entry field for a long value is also visible.

Note: The Server Option 60 was enabled by default on the screen above, see scenario one for more details. This is because you have your DHCP server and WDS running on the same host.

You may want to see these How to backup and restore a Windows DHCP Server via the DHCP Manager and PowerShell, Windows Deployment Services: How to setup and install WDS role, and how to fix “Can’t Sign In: Domain Unavailable & 169.254 IP Address Issue.

Scenario 1 – WDS and DHCP Deployment Scenarios

WDS and DHCP on the same server (Clients will find WDS through option 60 in DHCP): For us, this is enough since I have my WDS and DHCP on the same server. The reason it is selected by default.

Scenario 2 – WDS and DHCP Deployment Scenarios

WDS and DHCP in different subnets, you will need the clients to find WDS through Options 66 and 67 set in DHCP.

Option 66 tells the client the name of the WDS server.
Option 67 tells the client which file to boot from.

You may want to see this article for more information: No valid offer received: WDS PXE-E16 error when booting clients.

Scenario 3 – WDS and DHCP Deployment Scenarios

WDS and DHCP server on the same subnet but different servers: Here the clients will find the WDS by broadcast.

To get PXE working on a server that is running both DHCP and WDS you need to enable options 66 and 67. These settings will help your connecting clients to find the appropriate PXE server.

The setting is found in the DHCP configuration manager window.

Expand IPv4 and
Right-click and select Configure Options, and
Scroll down and select the following options below.

			
Boot Server Host Name
Bootfile Name

For Option 066 Boot Server Host Name

Enter the string value in the field for “066 Boot Server Host Name”. You can enter the FQDN of your server or the IP Address of the server in the string below.

Server options configuration window showing available DHCP options with '066 Boot Server Host Name' highlighted and a string value 'techarchive.techdirect.local' entered, along with 'OK' and 'Apply' buttons at the bottom.

Also, see SizeTrend: A Fast Windows Disk Space Analyzer for Storage Analysis, Veeam ONE 13.1.0.7034 Upgrade: Complete Pre-flight and Step-by-Step Guide, and Upgrading Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager to v13.1 and Applying System Updates.

For Option 067 Bootfile Name

Click on 067 Bootfile Name as shown below. Enter the string ” \smsboot\x64\wdsnbp.com” in the field. Click on Apply and if you have other settings to enter, click on apply otherwise click on OK.

Where is the BootFile Name located ” \smsboot\x64\wdsnbp.com”?

Navigate to the Remote Installation Folder location on the drives. The folder contains the boot images, install images, Windows Deployment Services Management Tool, and PXE Boots.

This drive MUST be NTFS formatted. See the image below for the location of the bootfile.

Screenshot of a Windows File Explorer window displaying the 'x64' directory, with subfolders and files related to boot options, including visible file extensions.

For how to configure Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server 2019” Now all the needed server options to support WDS has been successfully configured. I had to configure options 66 and 67 just to demonstrate how this works.

It does not apply to scenario 1. I only need option 60 as I have both my WDS and DHCP server on the same device.

Screenshot of a DHCP management console showing the server options for a specific IPv4 scope.

Note: If you have WDS and DHCP on the same server. Clients will find WDS through option 60 in DHCP).

For this, we do not need our server to listen to options 67 and 66. This is why option 60 was selected by default. For this, you can see the WDS settings for DHCP below.

Windows Deployment Services interface showing the TechDarhive properties with options to configure DHCP settings.

What happens when WDS and DNS are installed on the same server: DNS issues with WDS to resolve this.

I hope you found this blog post helpful. Now you have learned the various WDS and DHCP Deployment Scenarios: Configure DHCP Options 60, 66, and 67. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.