Zenworks Configuration Management, PXE, and Firewalls

I recently added a new site to my ZCM setup and I couldn't get the clients to PXE boot.  This problem was particularly frustrating because it seemed so familiar and I knew that I had encountered it and fixed it once before.

I did remember to start the Proxy DHCP (pdhcp in some places) service and set it to automatically start.  That's a simple as going to the Services console, picking the "Novell Proxy DHCP Service" and setting the Startup type to Automatic and then clicking on Start.

But PXE still doesn't work.  What did I miss?

The firewall configuration.

Out of the box, the Zenworks installer sets a lot of firewall allow rules, but it doesn't set the ones needed for PXE booting.  You have to set those manually.  Here's how to do that.

Go to the Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Firewall.  Click on the "Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall".  (You could just turn off the Windows Firewall if you wanted to, that would also fix this problem).


Then click on the "Allow another program..." button.

Then the "Browse..." button

Now you want to browse to your Zenworks folder.  By default that's C:\Program Files (x86)\Novell\Zenworks.  From there we're going to drill down further into the bin\preboot folder.  You should have wound up at C:\Program Files (x86)\Novell\Zenworks\bin\preboot

You'll notice a couple of applications: novell-pbserv, novell-proxydhcp, novell-tftp, novell-zisdservice, and novell-zmgprebootpolicy.  We're going to select and allow each of these in the firewall.  Just start with the first one, novell-pbserv, select it, then click the Open button.  Now you're back to the "Add a Program" screen, just click the Add button.

It should automatically check the box for the Domain network location which should be all you need.

At this point it's just rinse and repeat.  You'll click on the "Allow another program button" and go through and selecting all the "novell-xxxx" applications one by one adding them to the list.  Once you get them all done, it'll look like this.