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From: tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: tftp for bootstrap
Message-ID: <8722@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 02:13:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8722
Posted: Wed Jul  3 02:13:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 00:17:24 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 20

From: "J. Noel Chiappa" 

	MIT has used TFTP to boot diskless gateways for about 5 years
now. It works quite well. We really like TFTP since it is a standard
IP protocol and machines usually come with server TFTP implementations.
	We handle the 'punctuation characters' problem by using a file
name that consists of the IP address with all the fields three characters
long; thus, a gateway at 18.10.0.11 would boot from a file named
'018010000011'. (Actually, we use octal because we are wierd, but you
get the idea).
	In general, we use built in configuration information, kept in
some non-volatile storage. While you can avoid this on an Ethernet
with broadcast, this method does not work on non-broadcast nets. In
general, the spirit of IP is that the 'base solution' to any problem
should work on a non-broadcast net with no gateways. We thus feel that
having some small non-volatile store for information such as which
directories to look in on which hosts is reasonable.

	Noel
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