Supporting Remote Boot and Diskless Boot Clients (Task Map)

The Solaris DHCP service can support Solaris client systems that mount their operating system files remotely from another machine (the OS server). Such clients are often called diskless clients. Diskless clients can be thought of as persistent remote boot clients. Each time a diskless client boots, the client must obtain the name and IP address of the server that hosts the client's operating system files. The diskless client can then boot remotely from those files.

Each diskless client has its own root partition on the OS server, which is shared to the client host name. The DHCP server must always return the same IP address to a diskless client. That address must remain mapped to the same host name in the name service, such as DNS. When a diskless client receives a consistent IP address, the client uses a consistent host name, and can access its root partition on the OS server.

In addition to providing the IP address and host name, the DHCP server can supply the location of the diskless client's operating system files. However, you must create options and macros to pass the information in a DHCP message packet.

The following task map lists the tasks required to support diskless clients or any other persistent remote boot clients. The task map also provides links to procedures to help you carry out the tasks.

Task	Description	For Instructions
Set up OS services on a Solaris server.	Use the `smosservice` command to create operating system files for clients.	Chapter 7, Managing Diskless Clients (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration Also, see the `smosservice`(1M) man page.
Set up the DHCP service to support network boot clients.	Use DHCP Manager or the `dhtadm` command to create new Vendor options and macros, which the DHCP server can use to pass booting information to the clients. If you already created the options for network install clients, you need only to create macros for the Vendor client types of the diskless clients.	Chapter 2, Preconfiguring System Configuration Information (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations
Assign reserved IP addresses to the diskless clients.	Use DHCP Manager to mark address as reserved, or use the `pntadm` command to mark addresses as `MANUAL` for diskless clients.	Assigning a Reserved IP Address to a DHCP Client
Set up diskless clients for OS service.	Use the `smdiskless` command to add operating system support on the OS server for each client. Specify the IP addresses that you reserved for each client.	Chapter 7, Managing Diskless Clients (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration Also, see the `smdiskless`(1M) man page.