1IMPORTANT NOTE: 2 3For quite some time 4the /etc/rc.d/{initdiskless,diskless} scripts support a slightly different 5diskless boot process than the one documented in the rest of this file. 6 7I am not deleting the information below because it contains some 8useful background information on diskless operation, but for the 9actual details you should look at diskless(8), /etc/rc.d/initdiskless, 10/etc/rc.d/diskless, 11and the /usr/share/examples/diskless/clone_root script which can 12be useful to set up clients and server for diskless boot. 13 14--- $FreeBSD: src/share/examples/diskless/ME,v 1.3.4.1 2002/03/15 06:52:38 luigi Exp $ --- 15------------------------------------------------------------------------ 16 17When templating, /conf/ME is typically a softlink to 18/conf/<appropriate-machine>. When doing a diskless boot, /conf/ME is 19retargeted by /etc/rc.diskless1 from pointing to the server to pointing 20to the client's directory, /conf/<ip-address-of-client>. The retargeting 21is accomplished through an MFS -o union mount. 22 23When templating, this softlink should be different for each machine. 24When doing a diskless boot, this softlink is typically part of the / NFS 25mount from the server and points to the server's conf directory, but gets 26retargeted during the /etc/rc.diskless1 phase. 27 28System-wide configuration files must generally be targeted through /conf/ME. 29For example, your /etc/rc.conf.local should become a softlink to 30/conf/ME/rc.conf.local and your real rc.conf.local should go into the 31appropriate /conf/<appropriate-machine> directory. This is also true of 32/etc/rc.local, /etc/fstab, /etc/syslog.conf, /etc/ccd.conf, /etc/ipfw.conf, 33/etc/motd, /etc/resolv.conf, and possibly even /etc/ttys ( if you want 34to start an X session up on boot on certain of your machines ). 35 36When templating, you duplicate your / and /usr partitions on each machine's 37local disk from a single master ( assuming /var and /home reside elsewhere ), 38EXCEPT for the /conf/ME softlink. The /conf/ME softlink is the only thing 39on / that should be different for each machine. 40 41There are often categories of configuration files. For example, all of your 42shell machines may use one resolv.conf while all of your mail proxies may 43use another. Configuration files can be categorized fairly easily through 44/conf/HT.<category> directories. You put the actual configuration file in 45/conf/HT.<category> and make a softlink from 46/conf/ME/<appropriate-machines>/config-file to "../HT.<category/config-file". 47This means that access to these files tends to run through more than one 48softlink. The advantage is that for all the complexity of your /conf 49directory hierarchy, most of your common config files exist in only one place 50in reality. 51 52 53