From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 21 19:59:09 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 149DC106566C for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:59:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from seklecki@noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us) Received: from mx04.pub.collaborativefusion.com (mx04.pub.collaborativefusion.com [206.210.72.84]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BDCB28FC23 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:59:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([206.210.89.202]) by mx04.pub.collaborativefusion.com (StrongMail Enterprise 4.1.1.4(4.1.1.4-47689)); Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:08:25 -0400 X-VirtualServerGroup: Default X-MailingID: 00000::00000::00000::00000::::0 X-SMHeaderMap: mid="X-MailingID" X-Destination-ID: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-SMFBL: ZnJlZWJzZC1xdWVzdGlvbnNAZnJlZWJzZC5vcmc= DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us; s=noc_cfi_pgh_pa_us_key_dkim; l=1375; t=1271880505; i=@noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us; h=Message-ID:Date:From: Reply-To:Organization:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:Subject: Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; bh=r7iOjhN3Qg4PbuomS6xmu BIQhGw=; b=NqWPGl7L+jBC0xVe0vLg0DF/BLHPSJuK9udeqE7PCUwtACLgdfm5Z R+TnsnXTxu6V2Y87th1dCClyDRrhw4YNB4IO3zeqmTdKEnWx3RxmOwF2vhdPGjrb v0C0YF/rkom Message-ID: <4BCF5909.2060703@noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us> Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:59:05 -0400 From: "Brian A. Seklecki (CFI NOC)" Organization: Collaborative Fusion, Inc. (DRP NOC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100317 Thunderbird/3.0.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Free BSD Questions list Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: PXE + sysinstall(8) install.cfg: DHCP Attribute to map install config/policy to system MAC? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: bseklecki@noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:59:09 -0000 All: The install.cfg mechanism is pretty wicked. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a really efficient way to provide new clients (or class of clients) an install.cfg without rebuilding an MFSROOT image. At least with pxeboot(8), in TFTP-only-mode, using dhcpd.conf(5) client{} entries, there isn't a way to differentiate policies. It's just going to go looking for /boot/loader.rc and /boot/loader.conf from wherever DHCP told PXE to fetch pxeboot(8) from. From there, you need to custom compile a 5 meg mfsroot image for each [class of] client. With an NFS stage-2 boot, I suppose you could set: option root-path "/export/${client}Root" etc., but then your 5 meg mfsroot is just extracted 1-per-client. Still seems a bit ugly. It seems like we could teach sysinstall(8) to fetch install.cfg by some standard mechanism. Possibly a TFTP or NFS URL passed from the DHCP server -> boot loader -> kernel sysctl -> sysinstall(8). For example, the Sun SPARC4s would TFTP fetch their stage 1 boot loader via TFTP with a filename req of their MAC address in HEX format, so one could just put symlinks in place. Thoughts or other ideas? ~BAS PS: our in-tree tftpd(8) is an unending source of sorrow and misery and clinical despair. ports/net/freebsd-tftp is a lifesaver (it actually has debugging)