NAME

bootpd.conf − bootstrap protocol data base

SYNOPSIS

/etc/bootpd.conf

DESCRIPTION

The bootpd.conf file contains the database used by the bootstrap protocol daemon bootpd(8).  It is subdivided into two sections, which are delimited by a percent character (‘%’) in column 1.  Fields are delimited by one or more spaces or tabs.  Lines which are empty, or which begin with ‘#’ are ignored. 

The first section defines a set of generic names for files loaded via tftp during a diskless boot sequence; while the second section is a list of hardware address to Internet address mappings for diskless clients, and specifies which file should be loaded by the particular client. 

The general structure of the bootpd.conf file is as follows:

 #
#Section 1: generic names
#
defaultdir
 generic1pathname1
generic2pathname2
...
genericnpathnamen
 %
 #
#Section 2: address mappings
#
hostname1 hardwaretype1 hardwareaddr1 ipaddr1 [genericname [suffix] ]
hostname2 hardwaretype2 hardwareaddr2 ipaddr2 [genericname [suffix] ]
...

The first line in section 1 contains a single field which specifies the default pathname for the boot file.  Note that if the tftp daemon is running in “secure” mode, the default pathname should start with ‘.’, which equates to the home directory used by the daemon. 

All other lines have two fields, which are the generic name, and the associated boot file, which is given as [hostname:]pathname.  If the optional hostname is not given, it defaults to the local machine. 

Entries in section 2 contain four mandatory fields which map hardware addresses of the given type (hardware type is as defined in the “Assigned Numbers” RFC, (1 for 10 Mbit/s Ethernet)) to hostname and Internet address.  Note that the hostname:ipaddr pair must match the entries in the hosts(5) database. 

If the generic name is not given, then the first generic name in section 1 is used as a default.  The suffix field, if present, is used by bootpd(8c) as a modifier for the pathname appropriate to the generic name; if the file pathname+suffix does not exist, then pathname is returned, else the boot file is given as pathname+suffix. 

EXAMPLES

 /tftpboot
 unix            devserver:phase2
secure          secureboot
monitor         /boot/ethermon
 %
 dev1            1 00:00:a4:00:01:7b  24.96.13.1
dev2            1 00:00:a4:00:01:42  24.96.13.2
dev3            1 00:00:a4:00:01:3c  24.96.13.3
 netmon1         1 00:00:a4:00:01:01  24.96.13.0  monitor
 man1            1 08:00:20:00:d5:4e  24.96.13.21 secure .s1
man2            1 08:00:20:07:ff:90  24.96.12.22 secure .s2

With this example, the machine with a hardware address of 00:00:a4:00:01:42 will come up as host ‘dev2’, and will load its boot file from /tftpboot/phase2 on the machine ‘devserver’. 
Host ‘man1’ will be passed a boot filename of /tftpboot/secure.s1 if it exists, else it will be given /tftpboot/secure.

FILES

/etc/bootpd.conf

SEE ALSO

bootpd(8c), tftpd(8c), hosts(5)

B. Croft & J. Gilmore, “Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP)”, RFC 951, Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., September 1985. 

BUGS

The ability to nominate a different host as the source of the boot file is an Acorn specific extension to bootpd.conf; unfortunately, this prevents bootpd(8c) from being able to check whether or not suffixes should be added to the generic pathname when that pathname specifies a remote host. 

7th Edition  —  Revision 1.2 of 20/09/90