From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Nov 1 15:57:14 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA28781 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:57:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from lorax.ubergeeks.com (lorax.ubergeeks.com [206.205.41.241]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA28772 for ; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 15:57:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from adrian@lorax.ubergeeks.com) Received: from localhost (adrian@localhost) by lorax.ubergeeks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id SAA15180; Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:57:13 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from adrian@lorax.ubergeeks.com) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:57:13 -0500 (EST) From: ADRIAN Filipi-Martin Reply-To: Adrian Filipi-Martin To: Jordan Hayes cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stand-alone diskless system ... In-Reply-To: <9811012239.AA03494@blood.Thinkbank.COM> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, Jordan Hayes wrote: > Hi, > > I'm looking for any experiences that people here have had with truely > diskless machines: not booting over the network, but from say flash > memory or even a disk that is subsequently powered off. The goal is > quiet operation and low-heat generation. The machine will not be > saving any "interesting" data, so total loss on power-outtage is fine. > > I'm not on this list, so please direct responses to me. I'll summarize > is necessary. > > Thanks, > > /jordan It works really well. A week ago I helped some undergrads run an ACM programming contest. Since we weren't allowed to convert a dozen of the public access NT boxes to unix machines (aw shucks ;-), I brought in our own server, and made a DOS boot floppy using the stuff in /sys/i386/boo/biosboot. We booted these machines completely diskless with kernels stripped down to only network and console IO drivers. This added to running everything addressed in 10.x.x.x made for a pretty nice and limiting contest envrioment. We ran X and everything else you would want, and saw no performance problems. Adding a new machine was as simple as adding an entry to bootptab and making a private area to mount the volatile filesytems from, e.g. /var and /tmp. Check out the FreeBSD web pages. There is a little in the handbook, a little more in the tutorials section and I even found a page on NetBSD's site illuminating. It should be enough to figure it out. That's what I had to do for the contest. If you run into any specific problems, you could e-mail me, or maybe people on the questions list instead of the hackers list. When I get a break, I may submit my notes to the handbook or FAQ, but not just yet. Adrian -- [ adrian@ubergeeks.com -- Ubergeeks Consulting -- http://www.ubergeeks.com/ ] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message