Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 11:53:01 +0000 From: Chris Coleman <ccoleman@efcocorp.com> To: Andrew Gordon <arg@arg1.demon.co.uk> Cc: Jeff Harris <jeff@dcnv.com>, freebsd-small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Help... heh. Message-ID: <37F8951D.FCC943DF@efcocorp.com> References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.991002164306.28624A-100000@server.arg.sj.co.uk>
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This would make a great article for Daemon News. I know Lots of poeple would like to know how to make Diskless machines. Andrew Gordon wrote: > > On Sat, 2 Oct 1999, Jeff Harris wrote: > > > Well, so I've been charged (well, okay, this is the way I want to do it), > > with making 100+ BSD-based machines all play server on our network, and it > > seems to me that installing freebsd onto all 100+ machines (We could easily > > scale to 500 or more) would make administrative duties a nightmare. > > 500+ PCs is probably a nightmare whichever way you do it... > > > The machines in question are big pIII/500's with 1gig+ of ram each, 100mbit > > ethernet, etc. They're fast. My question is, where do I start looking for > > info. I've seen lots of diskless stuff (well, okay, a few things) but these > > machines aren't totally diskless. They at least have a floppy. > > Documentation is a bit confusing, as there are several different ways to > do diskless booting, and even more ways to arrange the configuration after > the initial boot stage. > > The state of the art on first-stage booting appears to be > ports/net/etherboot (pending future developments in /sys/boot). Or you > can probably still use the old /sys/i386/boot/netboot stuff if you build > an a.out kernel - haven't tried it lately. > > Both of these are designed to boot from ROM, but if you really want to use > those floppy drives, netboot or etherboot will compile a version that will > run off a DOS floppy. Or you can boot a kernel of the floppy as for a > normal local-disk setup but then mount an NFS root. > > The /etc/rc.diskless[12] stuff (and associated notes in > /usr/share/examples/diskless) gives you one way to go for configuration, > though it required a small amount of hacking for my requirements. > > > Anyone have any tips or pointers on where to look at? I think this is the > > direction I should move, as opposed to loading fbsd on each machine, running > > cvsup's on all of them and ssh'ing into each one to do a make world (or > > at least make installworld), and rsyncing our software (which is only > > apache-based). > > Another variation is CDROM boot/CDROM root. While you don't want CDROM > drives to be constantly active (for reliability reasons), in applications > which just load one application and keep on running it this can work well > - the application and its files get cached in RAM and stay there, with the > CD drive idle. I use this in a manufacturing test application - this way, > there's nothing in the test stations that can possibly go corrupt even > with the operators maltreating them (cutting the power etc). Test results > get saved over the network to a machine away from the factory floor. And > it's good for version control too: if I issue the right number of CDs, and > demand return of the old ones, there's no chance of old versions of > software getting used by accident. > > Drop me a line if you want sample config files or suchlike for any of > this. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message -- Chris Coleman Daemon News Editor in Chief http://www.daemonnews.org Bringing BSD Together. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message
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