Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ucbvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!ucbvax!tcp-ip
From: tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.tcp-ip
Subject: tftp for bootstrap
Message-ID: <8712@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 22:53:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8712
Posted: Tue Jul  2 22:53:57 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 00:15:43 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 29

From: sun!l5!gnu@BERKELEY (John Gilmore)

Sun would like to use "standard" protocols for diskless bootstrap in
new products.  We're looking at tftp/rarp/arp as described in RFC 906
and have run into some trouble which I hope the Internet community can
shed some light on.

How do you put useful information in a name that contains only
alphanumeric characters?  We'd like to put either the machine's
internet address e.g. 192.9.1.23, or its machine type e.g. Sun-2/120,
in the name, but these both use punctuation and don't work very well if
run-together.

It's not clear how many systems will do a tftp file transfer of an
unqualified name (without any directory specified) or whether you want
to put a set of boot files in the directory it would pick for that
case.

It's not clear whether upper and/or lower case letters are possible or
preferred.

[My personal preference would be a SunRPC based boot protocol, but
SunRPC has not seen much use in the Internet yet, is not as "standard"
as tftp, and would require people to port RPC if they wanted to boot
from non-Unix machines.  How big a problem are these?]

[Note that the protocol and administrative setup required would also
be used for booting from Sun servers, thus it must be easy to set up and
explain and administer.]