User manual

Etherboot User Manual

/etc/dhcpd.conf, and to make sure that the server is declared "not authoritative". The second is to look for

the Vendor Class Identiﬁer of "Etherboot-5.x" in the DHCP discover packet.

If you already have a DHCP server on your network that does provide the server IP and the ﬁlename,

then you have to either use that DHCP server by editing its conﬁguration ﬁle. This may require the

cooperation of the system admin if you are not the admin. If you are not able to conﬁgure the DHCP

server, then proceed to the section on REQUIRE_VCI_ETHERBOOT.

The minimum information you need to put in /etc/dhcpd.conf is:

1. The domain name of the machine.

2. The Ethernet (MAC) address of the network card, which you generally obtain from a sticker on the

card, a conﬁguration program for the card, or in the last resort, from watching the output of

Etherboot or from the packets sent from the card when trying to boot, using the debug option of

DHCPD.

3. The name of the boot image ﬁle, relative to the tftpdir directory.

4. The IP address you intend to give it, or the dynamic range it is to come from.

5. The TFTP server defaults to the DHCP server if not speciﬁed with next-server.

Here is a sample DHCP conﬁguration for ISC dhcpd:

option domain-name "ken.net.au";

option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;

option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;

use-host-decl-names on;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

host xterm {

hardware ethernet 08:00:2B:B7:F3:80;

fixed-address xterm.ken.net.au;

filename "/tftpdir/xterm.nb";

}

The declaration "use-host-decl-names on" tells dhcpd to include the name xterm in the reply so that it

can be used as part of pathname to mount by NFS, etc.

If your tftp server is not the same as the DHCP server, use the next-server declaration to specify a tftp

server.

The 2.4.4 and above kernels can do a separate DHCP request to obtain an address. Kernels in the 2.2

series use BOOTP. However user space DHCP conﬁguration is now preferred.

More information about DHCP can be found at the DHCP FAQ

(http://www.dhcp-handbook.com/dhcp_faq.html).

If you are on a local network that is not directly connected to the Internet, you can use the "private" IP

addresses 192.168.x.y (or in the other ranges mentioned in RFC1918

(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1918.txt)). Otherwise please ask either your network administrator or your

Internet service provider for your own IP address(es).