Throw Away Your Thumb Drives: How I Set Up Multi-VLAN PXE Booting with iVentoy

I got completely sick of hunting down USB flash drives every time I needed to test an operating system, run MemTest, or image a workstation on my bench. You burn an ISO to a thumb drive, use it once, leave it on a desk, and a week later you are wiping it again because a newer build came out.

I set up network PXE booting in my lab using iVentoy, and I haven’t plugged in an OS install drive since. It streams raw, unmodified ISO files straight across the network over HTTP, and by configuring UniFi DHCP Options 66 and 67, any machine on my workstation or management VLANs can boot off it instantly. Here is how I set it up and integrated it with UniFi.

1. Why Traditional PXE Sucks (And Why iVentoy Is Better)

If you’ve ever set up traditional network booting with Windows Deployment Services (WDS) or manual Syslinux/iPXE chains, you know how much of a chore it is. You have to extract the ISOs, rebuild initramfs images, maintain separate bootloaders for BIOS and UEFI, and push multi-gigabyte images over painfully slow TFTP protocols.

iVentoy completely solves this: you simply drop the raw .iso file into a folder, it sends a tiny bootloader over TFTP, and then streams the entire OS installation over fast HTTP on TCP port 16000.

2. The Secret: Running in ExternalNet Mode

iVentoy includes its own built-in DHCP server, but in an enterprise network with existing VLANs, you NEVER want a second rogue DHCP server running. I run iVentoy in ExternalNet mode (Mode 2). This tells iVentoy:

“Do not hand out IP addresses. Let the UniFi gateway handle DHCP leases, and only answer when a client specifically asks for the boot file.”

3. Configuring UniFi DHCP Options 66 and 67

With iVentoy running on my Hyper-V host (HV2 at 10.1.20.10), I opened the UniFi Network Controller, went to NET-WORKSTATIONS-VLAN10 and NET-MGMT-VLAN1, and turned on DHCP Boot Options:

In UniFi Controller -> Settings -> Networks:
Select 'NET-WORKSTATIONS-VLAN10':
- Advanced Configuration: Manual
- DHCP Service Management:
  [x] Enable DHCP Boot Options
  - Next Server (Option 66): 10.1.20.10
  - Boot File Name (Option 67): iventoy_loader_16000_uefi

Now, whenever a physical workstation on those VLANs boots over the network, UniFi hands it an IP and immediately points it to iVentoy’s UEFI loader.

4. Linking Storage with a Windows Directory Junction

I didn’t want to copy hundreds of gigabytes of ISOs onto the local iVentoy folder on the C: drive. All my installation media already lives on our centralized SAN share (H:\Shares\Data\ISOs). On the Windows host, I created an NTFS directory junction so iVentoy sees the SAN folder as local storage:

# Run in PowerShell as Administrator on HV2:
New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "C:\iVentoy\iventoy-1.0.45\iso" -Target "H:\Shares\Data\ISOs"

Whenever I download a new image—Windows 11, Windows Server 2025, Ubuntu, Proxmox, MemTest86+, or Clonezilla—I drop it into the share and it appears in the iVentoy menu within 5 seconds. No server reboots required.

5. How Fast Is It?

I plugged a test laptop into a bench port on my office switch, hit F12 for network boot, selected Windows Server 2025 from the graphical menu, and was sitting at the setup wizard in under 14 seconds. Over gigabit Ethernet, the HTTP stream maxes out the interface and boots faster than a cheap USB thumb drive ever could. No more flashing USB sticks. Ever.