jeffrey huang wrote:
> Hi, Sundar,
>
> A quick question, does this mean AI SPARC will use DHCP for network
> startup, and NOT using RARP?
Jeff,
Yes, AI SPARC will use only DHCP and not RARP or /etc/bootparams.
- Sundar
>
> Rgs
>
> Jeffrey
>
>
>
> Sundar Yamunachari ??:
>> Hi,
>>
>> With the introduction of GRUB, the DHCP setup for for installing a
>> X86 client made simple. It consists of setting up a macro to pass the
>> boot server address and the initial boot file (PXE grub). The client
>> boots grub and picks all other information from the menu.lst file
>> downloaded from the server. For simplicity, the menu.lst is hard-coded
>> using the MAC address of the client. For the Automated Installer
>> project, we continue to follow the same approach with one additional
>> parameter. We allow setting the name of menu.lst in the macro so that
>> any name could be used for menu.lst instead of being hard-coded based on
>> MAC address. The automated installer continue to support the MAC address
>> based name for menu.lst if the clients are custom configured.
>> In the case of SPARC, menu.lst is not used for installation which
>> means the information configured in menu,lst comes from some other
>> place. The two viable options are:
>>
>> 1. Configure all the information needed by the client in DHCP. For
>> example, the parameters like the service to be used and the location of
>> user archives could be configured in the DHCP. If these parameters are
>> specific to our installation programs (like sysidcfg and profile of
>> Jumpstart installation program), new symbols are required in the DHCP
>> and may be added as a vendor specific option.
>>
>> The advantage of this approach is that all information comes from
>> one place. Administrators may find it is easy to configure. If DHCP is
>> already used for installing older versions of Solaris on SPARC machines,
>> the changes are minimal. One of the main drawbacks of putting all
>> information in DHCP are the size of the DHCP macro is limited to 255 and
>> if the path name of the images are long, the DHCP macro will exceed the
>> limit. We have run in to this problem lot of time with SPARC and with
>> X86 before the implementation of GRUB. Another problem is that the user
>> needs to add our vendor specific options to the DHCP, if it is managed
>> separately.
>>
>> 2. Configure the minimum parameters needs for the booting of OpenSolaris
>> and get the rest of the parameters later and start the installation
>> using a file similar to menu.lst. I am thinking of using the same TFTP
>> server directory to keep the new file where the client gets the initial
>> boot program.
>>
>> The advantages are that DHCP macros may not exceed the limit and new
>> vendor specific symbols need not be added to the DHCP. We can more
>> information in the future to customize the installation. Also this
>> method aligns with the X86 installer. The disadvantage is that there is
>> a new file to configure and add more code in the client to down the new
>> file.
>>
>> I feel that the second option is much better since it aligns with
>> X86 implementation and any option that require minimum DHCP setup is a
>> better option.
>>
>> Please give your feedback on these two options. If I missed any other
>> option that may be better than these options, please let me know.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Sundar
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> caiman-discuss at opensolaris.org
>> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/caiman-discuss
>>
>
> --
> Great Thanks & Best Regards
>
> ---
> Jeffrey Huang SWAN: x51683, Ext: 0086-10-62673683
> Solaris QE Group Email: jeffrey.huang at sun.com
> China Engineering & Research Institute, Sun Microsystems
> 7/F Chuang Xin Plaza, Tsinghua Science Park, Beijing China
>
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