x86: Changes to the smdiskless Command

The smdiskless command is used to set up diskless clients. Previously, the smdiskless command set up the root (/) and /usr file systems, then exported these file systems to the client through NFS. To boot the client, you would additionally need to configure the /tftpboot area manually. This manual step is no longer a requirement for setting up a diskless client. The smdiskless command now automatically invokes a script in the /usr/sadm/lib/wbem/config_tftp file, which prepares the /tftpboot area for a PXE boot.

After running the smdiskless command, the /tftpboot/01ethernet-address file is displayed as a link to pxegrub and the /tftpboot/menu.lst.01ethernet-address file, which contains the GRUB menu entry. The ethernet-address in this instance is 01, followed by the Ethernet address of the client network interface. When supplying the Ethernet address of the client network interface, use uppercase letters and do not include colons.

The boot archive of the diskless client is automatically updated during shutdown. If the client's boot archive is out of date when it is shut down, you might need to run the following command from the OS server to update the boot archive:

# bootadm update-archive -f -R /export/root/host-name

where host-name is the host name of the client system.

For more information, see x86: How to Boot the Failsafe Archive to Forcibly Update a Corrupt Boot Archive and the bootadm(1M) man page.

This information applies to both SPARC based and x86 based OS servers that are serving x86 based clients.

For more information on setting up and configuring DHCP, see Chapter 14, Configuring the DHCP Service (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: IP Services.

For more information on how to manage diskless clients in the GRUB boot environment, see Booting an x86 Based System by Using GRUB (Task Map).