Re: [ProgSoc] Challenge to ProgSoc members

[Anton Blanchard <anton@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

> I was actually thinking about using BOOTP, or something similar. If we
> store the image on ftoomsh, or geryon or whatever and it can be downloaded
> to the local machine from there.

There are some drawbacks with using BOOTP across subnets. Consider this:

The client wants to talk to the BOOTP server, however it has no idea what
its own IP is or what the BOOTP servers IP or MAC address is. It only
knows its own MAC address. So it sends out a broadcast message.

The BOOTP server recognises the request. Now the server knows the MAC
address of the client. It can work out its IP and send it back.

For the initial broadcast to work, the BOOTP server usually has to be on
the same subnet. That rules out the ProgSoc machines as BOOTP servers.

> ->Then there's the problem of IP numbers, how do the current machines
> ->figure out their IP numbers and how are we going to code it onto a floppy?

> yes, a very very very good point, ummm, is there a way we can input that
> kind of data at the "Boot:" prompt? What about using RARP? As in the
> machine knows it's hardware address and just needs to figure out it's ip
> address. Actually RARP is the best soloution....much neater :)

RARP has the same problem as BOOTP. Routers can relay DHCP if configured,
but that is not really an option.

Since the PCs work out their IP when they boot, it would be easiest to
grab this. We could use a DOS based loader such as loadlin, and
the kernel can then be passed networking parameters
(see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/nfsroot.txt for details):

ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>
nfsroot=[<server-ip>:]<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]

Anton
-- 
Anton Blanchard                         anton@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au
Computer Systems Engineering Student    anton@nospam.lister.flex.com.au
University of Technology                http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~anton/
Sydney, Australia

Why is it raining fish in our sleeping quarters?!
--
You are subscribed to the progsoc mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a
message containing "unsubscribe" to progsoc-request@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au.
If you are having trouble, ask owner-progsoc@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au for help.

This list is archived at <http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/lists/progsoc/>