Subject: [netatalk-admins] Mac NC NetBooting/DHCP/BOOTP Info in URL:

From: Mike <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 00:46:49 -0700 (PDT)

Hello Everyone,

People have been writing about wanting to be able to have more than one
Mac OS X NetBoot server per subnet. People have also been writing, asking
for URLs on how to make a Mac boot from a *NIX box. People have been
asking a lot about how to configure DHCP on a different box to have a
central authority hand out NetBoot info to Net Booting Macintosh clients.

I asked these questions too, but nobody else had a solution...

Quick synopsis of URL below:
It is possible to Net Boot a mac from a non mac OS X Server (but I would
not suggest it.)
It is possible to have a central DHCP authority redirect multiple net
booting macs to different Mac OS X Servers.
It is possible to load balance many mounts, tftp downloads, and fileshares
for images to multiple servers.

How?

Pulled out a sniffer, and watch the transactions, and understood the
process, and ways to possibly answer the above questions. Answered the
questions, though you may not like the answers.

Not all answers are not elegant, some are not pretty, some create possible
security holes, and by no means should they be considered the final
answer.(use at your own risk)

http://libweb.sonoma.edu/mike/macnc/

With Apple's developmental cycles appearing to be more accelerated as of
late, they will probably have a solution the the problems mentioned above
before too long, so the need for this site is probably pretty small, and
will not last long. If Apple is like MS, they may change their procedure
before long anyway... 

plug
They have a good product, and I hope they continue to support it, and
expand it to accomodate flexible use with more granular controls. If I
could use many of these servers on my subnet, I would push to buy many of
their Mac OS X NetBooting Servers.
/plug

If you have ideas on other things to add in the way of information, or
would like to offer constructive criticism, drop me an e-mail. If you want
to complain just to seeyour words on the screen, re-route that message to
/dev/null.

Thanks for your time,
-Michael Egan

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Systems Department Operating Systems Analyst for the Ruben Salazar Library
              of California State University at Sonoma.
  /UNIX(/BSD/SysV)\N_NW[.]VMS\WNTS\WNTW\W95\W311\WFWG\DOS:MacOS/NeXTSTEP  
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