Enabling auto-discovery of devices

In a PXE-based environment, you can enable automatic discovery of new devices. Once enabled, BMC Server Automation retrieves the MAC address of any new device from the PXE server as soon as the device is powered up, and the device is then added to the list of devices in the BMC Server Automation Console. This auto-discovery mechanism serves as an alternative to manually adding individual devices or importing a list of devices.

By default, auto-discovery of devices is disabled. You enable auto-discovery through the pxe.conf file.

To enable auto-discovery of devices in a PXE-based environment

1. Locate the pxe.conf file and open it for editing. By default, this file resides in the following location:
   • Windows:  installDirectory\PXE\br\pxe.conf
   • Linux/UNIX:  installDirectory/NSH/br/pxe.conf
2. In the pxe.conf file, find the auto_discover_disabled option, and change its value from 1 (the default) to 0.
3. Save the pxe.conf file.
4. Restart the PXE server, as described in Starting and stopping a PXE server.

Where to go from here

During the configuration of boot image files, set a default image file using the Set as default image check box on the Image Files tab. The default image that you select is used in the auto-discovery of any new device.