On 21-Jul-06, Jan Schneider wrote: > I am a developer of the open source software opsi (http://www.opsi.org), > which is an automatic software deployment system. > opsi supports automated installation of different operating systems. > We are using a linux-bootimage to install operating systems on PXE-capable > computers.
Interesting. > TFTP is often used to transfer bootimages / boot configs to a PXE-capable > computer. > If you use a named pipe to transfer this data from a process instead of > reading it from a file, this offers different advantages: > > The process, which is writing into the pipe "knows" when a client is trying > to > boot from PXE. > The process can react dynamically in contrast to a static file. I see. For your application it seems to be enough to know when a client requests a file (and maybe you communicate client details using some other communication channel). Otherwise I would expect the patch to communicate client-specific information to the program that provides the file. Anyway, AFAICT you will have a problem with concurrent access to the FIFO by multiple instances of atftpd (when multiple clients request their files at the same time). If your environment (opsi) works around this problem, it would be helpful to either give a simple example in the manpage how the FIFO could be used safely, or to document it as a special feature that cannot be used in a simple way from the command line. The feature itself needs documentation in the manpage anyway. Please explain how it can be useful to the user, with and without opsi. > After reading the pipe it is possible to close it, so the computer will not > find a boot-configuration on the next reboot and will boot from its local > harddisk. How can you do this on a client-by-client basis? Is it possible only from within opsi, or is it possible for every user of atftpd? > ... and so on > > The patched version of atftpd in combination with opsi is running in > different > larger environments without any problems so far. > > best regards Regards, -- Olaf Dabrunz (od/odabrunz), SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Nürnberg
