IMPORTANT NOTE: For quite some time the /etc/rc.d/{initdiskless,diskless} scripts support a slightly different diskless boot process than the one documented in the rest of this file. I am not deleting the information below because it contains some useful background information on diskless operation, but for the actual details you should look at diskless(8), /etc/rc.d/initdiskless, /etc/rc.d/diskless, and the /usr/share/examples/diskless/clone_root script which can be useful to set up clients and server for diskless boot. --- $FreeBSD: src/share/examples/diskless/ME,v 1.3.4.1 2002/03/15 06:52:38 luigi Exp $ --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When templating, /conf/ME is typically a softlink to /conf/. When doing a diskless boot, /conf/ME is retargeted by /etc/rc.diskless1 from pointing to the server to pointing to the client's directory, /conf/. The retargeting is accomplished through an MFS -o union mount. When templating, this softlink should be different for each machine. When doing a diskless boot, this softlink is typically part of the / NFS mount from the server and points to the server's conf directory, but gets retargeted during the /etc/rc.diskless1 phase. System-wide configuration files must generally be targeted through /conf/ME. For example, your /etc/rc.conf.local should become a softlink to /conf/ME/rc.conf.local and your real rc.conf.local should go into the appropriate /conf/ directory. This is also true of /etc/rc.local, /etc/fstab, /etc/syslog.conf, /etc/ccd.conf, /etc/ipfw.conf, /etc/motd, /etc/resolv.conf, and possibly even /etc/ttys ( if you want to start an X session up on boot on certain of your machines ). When templating, you duplicate your / and /usr partitions on each machine's local disk from a single master ( assuming /var and /home reside elsewhere ), EXCEPT for the /conf/ME softlink. The /conf/ME softlink is the only thing on / that should be different for each machine. There are often categories of configuration files. For example, all of your shell machines may use one resolv.conf while all of your mail proxies may use another. Configuration files can be categorized fairly easily through /conf/HT. directories. You put the actual configuration file in /conf/HT. and make a softlink from /conf/ME//config-file to "../HT.