On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 07:33:28PM +0100, Guenter Millahn wrote: > Dear Linux'ers, > > I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX). > I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian. > > The Boot/Rootserver is a Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to set up > a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers. > > And here are my questions: > 1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained > the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations > here are also welcome ;-) > 2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450 > or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd? > 3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests > and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC > to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up?
All of this is explained in the Debian SPARC install docs. Basically the net boot for sparcs involves initially sending a RARP request to get the IP, then dowloading an image or kernel via tftp. The downloaded file can be either a simple linux kernel image, in which case you will need to also pass NFS root options (also explained in the install docs), or it can be a tilo image (a kernel image and initrd image together). The tftpboot images provided in the disks-sparc directory are tilo images, and you can use them to install a diskless client (which will create and configure the base system onto an NFS root partition). Again, all of this is explained in detail in the install docs here: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/potato/main/disks-sparc/ There you will find all of the required images and docs to get you going. -- -----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=------ / Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \ ` [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ' `---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
