Hello.

I am in charge of ~50 GNU/Linux stations but I am not a real computer
guy and my general knowledge about the various issues related to
network installations (PXE, dhcp, tftp, etc.) is very poor, so
although I spent days searching the Internet, I cannot find a
definitive answer to the following question (indeed, I find various
docs/tutorials confusing at best, contradictory at worse).

I work in a lab which runs its own dhcp server.  

The question: on my computer, is it possible to install cobbler so
that I can perform fully automated network installations on my 50
stations without having access to that dhcp server?

An example of things that appear at first sight contradictory to me:

On the one hand, I read on
https://github.com/cobbler/cobbler/wiki/Build-iso that

  "Often an environment cannot support PXE because of either (A) an
   unfortunate lack of control over DHCP configurations (i.e. another
   group owns DHCP and won't give you a next-server entry), or (B) you
   are using static IPs only."

and my understanding is that I am exactly in case (A), that the answer
to my question is "no", and that the workaround is to use "buildiso",
which does not provide a fully automated solution.

On the other hand, I read on
http://serverfault.com/questions/53116/howto-setup-cobbler-with-pxe-if-you-cant-change-the-dhcp-server
(which is dated *before* the previous link):

  "According to the documentation i've read it [...] should be possible
  to have an unmodified dhcp server (for example if the admin at your
  location denies access) and a separate server that ONLY returns the
  boot information.

The person further claims he has been able to do that with cobbler
using dnsmasq.

Thank you in advance for any hint.

Alain

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