HDS ViewStation System Administrator's Guide

A Hypertext Document

Booting with the BOOTP Network Service

This page describes booting the ViewStation using the BOOTP network service.

BOOTP is a network service program (refer to RFC 951, RFC 1048, and RFC 1084 for specific details) running on your host computer that listens for startup or boot requests. When it receives a boot request, it looks in the bootp table (a file called /etc/bootptab) for information about the machine making the request.

The fields in this file have an abbreviation for the entry name (such as ha for hardware address, and ip for IP address, etc.) and an associated value. These values are sent with the bootp response and received by the ViewStation to start its boot process. Check the syntax for these files on your particular system.

	:ha= 		hardware address
		      	example: :ha=008096006a5c:\

	:ip=		IP address
		      	example: :ip=128.91.6.15:\

	:hd=		home directory
		      	example: :hd=/home/hdssun6/boot:\

	:bf=		bootfile < filename (limited to 128 chars) >
		      	example: :bf=V30-D.hds:\

	:gw=		gateway address 
		      	example: :gw=128.91.2.5:\

	:sm=		subnet mask
		      	example: :sm=255.255.0.0:\

	:ds=		domain nameserver (entry is one or two
 			addresses separated by a space)
		      	example: :ds=128.91.3.12 128.91.3.1:\
		 	more than two entries are ignored; if only one 				is used, secondary is zero

	:hn		host (ViewStation) name
			(no entry; host does name lookup from :ip)	

	:T128= 		(vendor tag) configuration password
		      	example: :T128="ApollO":\

	:T129= 		(vendor tag) configuration filename
		     	example: :T129="config.fx":\

	:T130= 		(vendor tag) configuration directory
		      	example: :T130="/home/hds-fx/config":\

BOOTP may be used to load the configuration file (containing Setup Mode values) or load only the ViewStation boot file (containing the server code) or both. Do not confuse these functions.

These entries and values, along with any other BOOTP fields your system may use, are retrieved from the bootp table and sent to the ViewStation in the bootp response. The configuration path and filename are also sent if the vendor tag fields are set. This configuration file contains individual resources and values for Setup Mode fields, which are given in detail in a later section.

When you turn on the ViewStation, it sends the BOOTP request automatically. BOOTP then sets the IP address for the ViewStation and loads the software file. You have a root window with the Setup icon in the lower right corner.

BOOTP Troubleshooting
This section gives some suggestions for troubleshooting BOOTP problems.

Setting Up BOOTP on your Host Computer
This page gives some suggestions for setting up BOOTP network services on your host computer.

Sample /etc/bootptab File Entries
This page gives some sample file entries for your bootptab file.

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