Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 12:43:51 +0100 From: Tom Hukins <tom@FreeBSD.org> To: Jean-Francois Dockes <jean-francois.dockes@wanadoo.fr> Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-net@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Updated 'diskless operation' section for the handbook Message-ID: <20011012124351.A7169@eborcom.com> In-Reply-To: <200110121003.f9CA37p10022@hautmedoc.dockes.com>; from jean-francois.dockes@wanadoo.fr on Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 12:03:07PM %2B0200 References: <200110121003.f9CA37p10022@hautmedoc.dockes.com>
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[-- Attachment #1 --]
On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 12:03:07PM +0200, Jean-Francois Dockes wrote:
>
> I recently configured a diskless FreeBSD machine, and I found the
> handbook section to be outdated to the point of irrelevance.
>
> I wrote an updated version, which I hereby submit for review, as suggested
> by the documentation project 'Submitting documentation' section.
Great work! Your document seems very useful, although I've never used
diskless booting.
The attached patch contains fixes for some of the English, a minor
stylistic change (linking directly to a man page) and a few examples
of removing unecessary space within tags.
The last point is something you've done throughout the document, which
causes it to render peculiarly. For example, you've got space after a
word before a full-stop in several places. The end of the patch
contains a few examples of this.
Hopefully your work can be incorporated into the Handbook soon.
Thanks,
Tom
[-- Attachment #2 --]
--- diskless-chapter.sgml.orig Fri Oct 12 12:33:02 2001
+++ diskless-chapter.sgml Fri Oct 12 12:18:26 2001
@@ -1109,8 +1109,8 @@
<para>A FreeBSD machine can boot over the network and operate without a
local disk, using file systems mounted from an NFS server. No system
- modification is necessary, beyond standard configuration files.
- Such a system is easy to set up because all the necessary elements
+ modification is necessary, beyond standard configuration files, and
+ such a system is easy to set up because all the necessary elements
are readily available: </para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
@@ -1156,15 +1156,15 @@
<para>There are many ways to set up diskless workstations. Many
elements are involved, and most can be customized to suit local
taste. The following will describe the setup of a complete system,
- emphasising simplicity and compatibility with the
+ with an emphasis on simplicity and compatibility with the
standard FreeBSD startup scripts. The system described has the
following characteristics: </para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The diskless workstations use a shared
- read-only <filename>root</filename> filesystem, and a shared
- read-only <filename>/usr</filename>. </para>
+ readonly <filename>root</filename> filesystem, and a shared
+ readonly <filename>/usr</filename>. </para>
<para>The <filename>root</filename> file system is a copy of a
standard FreeBSD root (typically the server's), with some
configuration files overriden by ones specific to diskless
@@ -1179,9 +1179,9 @@
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
- <caution><para>As described, this system is insecure. It should
- live in a protected area of a network, and be untrusted by
- other hosts.</para>
+ <caution><para>The security of the whole system (server+workstations)
+ is probably very bad. It should live in a protected area
+ of a network, and be untrusted by other hosts.</para>
</caution>
@@ -1191,8 +1191,8 @@
<sect3>
<title>Configuring DHCP/BOOTP</title>
- <para>There are two protocols that are commonly used to boot a
- workstation that retrieves its configuration over the network: BOOTP
+ <para>There are two main standard protocols used by a booting
+ workstation to retrieve its configuration over the network: BOOTP
and DHCP. They are used at several points in the workstation
bootstrap: </para>
<itemizedlist>
@@ -1206,7 +1206,7 @@
</itemizedlist>
<para>It is possible to configure a system to use only BOOTP.
- The &man.bootpd.8; server program is included in the
+ The <command>bootpd</command> server program is included in the
base FreeBSD system.</para>
<para>However, DHCP has a number of advantages over BOOTP (nicer
@@ -1222,8 +1222,8 @@
<para>The <application>isc-dhcp</application> server can answer
both BOOTP and DHCP requests.</para>
- <para>As of release 4.4, <application>isc-dhcp</application> is not part of the base
- system. You will first need to install the
+ <para><application>isc-dhcp</application> is not part of the base
+ system (as of release 4.4). You will first need to install the
<filename>/usr/ports/net/isc-dhcp3</filename> port or the
corresponding package. Please refer to <xref linkend="ports">
for general information about ports and packages.</para>
@@ -1324,11 +1324,12 @@
<title>Preparing a boot program with
<application>Etherboot</application></title>
- <para><ulink url="http://etherboot.sourceforge.net">Etherboot's Web
- site</ulink> contains
+ <para>You can find extensive
<ulink url="http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/doc/html/userman.html">;
- extensive documentation </ulink> mainly intended for Linux
- systems, but nonetheless containing useful information. The following
+ <application> etherboot </application> documentation </ulink>
+ on its <ulink url="http://etherboot.sourceforge.net">; home site
+ </ulink>. This documentation is mainly intended for Linux
+ systems, but contains a lot of useful explanations. The following
will just outline how you would use
<application>etherboot</application> on a FreeBSD system.</para>
@@ -1488,9 +1489,9 @@
conf/31200 </ulink> for the small adjustment needed in
<filename> clone_root </filename>.
Also see PR
- <ulink url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=29870">conf/29870</ulink>;
- about a small adjustment needed in
- <filename>/etc/rc.diskless2</filename>.
+ <ulink url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=29870">;
+ conf/29870 </ulink> about a small adjustment needed in
+ <filename> /etc/rc.diskless2 </filename>.
</para>
</sect3>
@@ -1498,8 +1499,8 @@
<title>Configuring swap</title>
<para>If needed, it is possible to do swapping over NFS, to a file
- on the server. The exact <filename>bootptab /filename> or
- <filename>dhcpd.conf</filename> options are a little mysterious
+ on the server. The exact <filename> bootptab </filename> or
+ <filename> dhcpd.conf </filename> options are a little mysterious
and poorly documented. Anyway, here is what worked for me, using
isc-dhcp 3.0rc11.</para>
<procedure>
@@ -1558,7 +1559,7 @@
<sect4>
- <title>Running with a read-only <filename>/usr</filename></title
+ <title>Running with a readonly <filename>/usr</filename></title
<para>If the diskless workstation is configured to run X, you
will have to adjust the xdm configuration file, which puts
the error log on <filename>/usr</filename> by default.</para>
help
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