Sorry... I forgot the second part of your post, David :)
David Douthitt wrote:
> That is a very nice and appealing feature. I forget now though - how
> does the server determine which set of files to use? I thought it was
> based on IP or MAC address - which becomes a bit difficult if you never
> know what MAC address you're going to have.
Yes, the server determines based on either IP or MAC address (depending of what the
clients
"know" about themselves) what to do. I mean, if the client only broadcasts or queryes
the server
with only its MAC address... the server sends it over its IP address, netmask, DNSs,
gateway...
then the kernel...
When the client already knows its IP address (its on the EPROM or the boot floppy or
wherever)
then it "asks" the server for a kernel to boot with...
> It also makes your configuration client-dependent (or PC-dependent)
> rather than "user-choice-dependent"; that's what I had in mind for some
It does... the thing here is that I am more thinking about a LAN where all the boxes
are known... so
the server keeps a database with all MAC addresses related to their IPs,
kernel-to-boot-from, and
all other configuration... perhaps even a NFS exported directory for the client to
mount (logs,
spoolers, etc).
> of the more powerful configuration options. So I can go to a computer,
> boot the disk, and select a particular "configuration" based on a FTP
> server somewhere, perhaps with a set of packages for "ftp_server" or
> "ssh_server" or "web_server" or "net_test" or other things...
That's really cool. It's an approach I wasn't "thinking" before. I very much like
it... I now see the
point of you wanting to have many nic modules on the floppy.
> Thus the "set" is not the computer or the network card, but rather the
> functions desired by the user at the time.
Cool! Really cool!
> Almost sounds as if my network loading is more powerful than this more
> traditional network boot.
Of course, it is. Again... I was thinking about a LAN... actually, I think most of the
time about two
very similar scenarios: my class-room (I teach BioInformatics) and my brother's
WebCafé... in both
places I like to have thin diskless clients booting from floppy as straigth forward as
possible. I
mean... just drop in the floppy, turn on the system... wait for some seconds and start
working... you
know.
Your network loading is more than that, yes... it's a really nice approach for booting
a system
anywhere on the net and loading from a kind-of-public server. Am I wrong on that?
A.
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