Installing and Administering Internet Services

Chapter 5 171

Conﬁguring TFTP and BOOTP Servers

Conﬁguring the TFTP Server

To manually conﬁgure the TFTP server, tftpd, you need to modify the

tftpd entry in the /etc/inetd.conf ﬁle or create an entry for the user

tftp in the /etc/passwd ﬁle. If you use SAM to conﬁgure your system

as a BOOTP server, your system is automatically conﬁgured as a TFTP

server. The following sections explain the manual method for conﬁguring

and verifying tftpd.

NOTE You must be superuser to conﬁgure the TFTP server.

Procedure for Conﬁguring tftpd

Conﬁguring tftpd on your system allows you to make ﬁles available to

remote clients that support TFTP. For new tftpd installations, you can

do this in one of two ways:

• Add the user tftp to /etc/passwd. For example,

tftp:*:510:10:TFTP:/home/tftpdir:/usr/bin/false

HP recommends that you use this method. If there is no

/etc/passwd entry for the user tftp, tftpd has root access to any

ﬁles or directories you specify in the entry for tftp in the

/etc/inetd.conf ﬁle. If an /etc/passwd entry exists for the user

tftp, tftpd cannot read or write ﬁles unless they are readable or

writeable by the user tftp.

If you create an /etc/passwd entry for the user tftp, tftpd ﬁrst

looks for a ﬁle relative to the home directory of the user tftp. If the

ﬁle is not found there, then tftpd looks for the ﬁle relative to the

path(s) speciﬁed with the tftpd command. If you want to give remote

systems permission to retrieve a ﬁle through TFTP, the ﬁle must be

readable by the user tftp. If you want to give remote systems

permission to transmit a ﬁle to your system through TFTP, the ﬁle

must be writeable by the user tftp. For example, to create a home

directory for the user tftp, make the directory owner the user tftp,

and ensure the directory gives the user tftp read, write, and execute

permissions. For example: