BOOTP and fai-install server on different machines

[Paul Lussier]

In a message dated: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 10:05:16 EDT
James Russell said:

>Is that what Thomas is referring to in the comment "There may be problems
>when using DHCP version 3.X, because some option names has changed"?

>Is it possible that in future documentation, those names could get more 
>descriptive names? Are they PXE options or are they netboot options?

I believe the options you're referring to; option-170, etc. are 
considered "undefined options" which are actually optside the DHCP 
protocol.  It's not that they are "non-standard" options, they are 
not technically DHCP options at all.  They are meant I think as a way 
for others to extend DHCP to conform to they're needs.  From the ISC 
dhcp-options(5) man page:

       The documentation for the various options mentioned  below
       is  taken  from  the  latest  IETF  draft document on DHCP
       options.   Options which are not listed  by  name  may  be
       defined  by  the name option-nnn, where nnn is the decimal
       number of the option code.   These options may be followed
       either  by a string, enclosed in quotes, or by a series of
       octets,  expressed  as   two-digit   hexadecimal   numbers
       seperated by colons.   For example:

            option option-133 "my-option-133-text";
            option option-129 1:54:c9:2b:47;

       Because  dhcpd does not know the format of these undefined
       option codes, no checking is done to ensure  the  correct­
       ness of the entered data.

So, I don't think it's possible that the options will ever get more 
standardized/descriptive names than this.  Also, in ISC's dhcp 3.x 
series server, the 'option option-XXX' syntax has changed completely, 
which is why this server won't work with the current dhcp examples/
descriptions in the FAI documentation.

I believe it is *possible* to use dhcp 3.x for FAI, it's just a 
matter of someone:

	a) playing with this server long enough to understand it
	b) figure out how to get FAI to work with it
	c) document the process.

This is all on my 'todo' list, but I don't know how soon I'll be able 
to get to it, since I'm still just trying to figure out FAI 
completely.  Someday.... :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
----
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   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.

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