From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sun Jun 13 16:02:53 2021 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FD5265EE24 for ; Sun, 13 Jun 2021 16:02:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from feenberg@nber.org) Received: from mail2.nber.org (mail2.nber.org [198.71.6.79]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4G2zrD2l9Mz3rMj for ; Sun, 13 Jun 2021 16:02:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from feenberg@nber.org) Received: from mail2.nber.org (mail2.nber.org [198.71.6.79]) by mail2.nber.org (8.16.1/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 15DG2omc004041 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 13 Jun 2021 12:02:50 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from feenberg@nber.org) Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2021 12:02:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel Feenberg To: tech-lists cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: freebsd tftp server for hetrogenous diskless clients In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <17986d52-bbf3-96a7-e1bb-4ecdee69962c@nber.org> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-KLMS-Rule-ID: 1 X-KLMS-Message-Action: clean X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Status: not scanned, disabled by settings X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Interceptor-Info: not scanned X-KLMS-AntiPhishing: Clean, 1970/01/01 00:00:00 X-KLMS-AntiVirus: Kaspersky Security 8.0 for Linux Mail Server, version 8.0.1.721, bases: 2021/06/13 01:13:00 #12233019 X-KLMS-AntiVirus-Status: Clean, skipped X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4G2zrD2l9Mz3rMj X-Spamd-Bar: --- Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of feenberg@nber.org designates 198.71.6.79 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=feenberg@nber.org X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-3.50 / 15.00]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; TO_DN_SOME(0.00)[]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+mx]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[nber.org]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_SOME(0.00)[]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED(-0.20)[198.71.6.79:from]; RCPT_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-1.00)[-1.000]; RCVD_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:26287, ipnet:198.71.6.0/23, country:US]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[]; MAILMAN_DEST(0.00)[freebsd-questions]; RWL_MAILSPIKE_POSSIBLE(0.00)[198.71.6.79:from] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.34 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2021 16:02:53 -0000 On Sun, 13 Jun 2021, tech-lists wrote: > Hi, > > Can freebsd be a pxe/tftp/nfs server for linux > (ubuntu/debian/arch) clients? > > any pitfalls/gotchas? We have more than 30 Linux clients PXE booting from a FreeBSD server. This is not a network install, /bin /sbin etc are NFS mounts. We have been doing this for many years, currently the Linux clients are all CentOS, they have been Ubuntu at times in the past. Both FreeBSD and Linux have been kept up to current supported releases. We like PXE booting with system files on read-only server because it makes updates quick and easy, ensures uniformity across clients and is in general convenient. We don't do it to save disk space. Network bandwidth is not really a problem - 1GBE is fine for this, although we upgraded to 10GBE some years ago because the applications do a lot of network I/O. If you lose the network connection the client will hang till the network is restored, and jobs will continue from where they left off. Daniel Feenberg NBER > > thanks, > -- > J. >