I don't know if this is the right place for this question,
but here goes...

I was trying to set up a system to boot diskless by using
rpc.bootparamd and friends--my first experience with this
kind of functionality.  It wasn't too hard, but I ran into
a small but annoying snag with the /etc/bootparams file.
Bootparams(5) shows root, swap and dump configurations with
no server defined:

           dummy   root=/export/dummy/root \
                   swap=/export/dummy/swap \
                   dump=/export/dummy/swap

     When the client named "dummy" requests the pathname for its logical
     "root" it will be given the pathname ``/export/dummy/root'' as the re-
     sponse to its RPC request.

I assumed that these would be relative to/served from the host
RPC server.  rpc.bootparamd, however, doesn't do this.

My question is, wouldn't it be reasonable for rpc.bootparamd
to fill in gethostname() if there is no server defined in the
bootparams file?  If not, is there another way to get the
default server on the client side (in which case I'd like to
update the kernel to be able to mount root in such an event).
In any case, I think the server:/path format should be documented
in bootparams(5).

Comments?

-allen

BTW, the diskless(8) man page is great!  It even has a sample
bootparams file with the server:/path format.  Kudos to the
author of that.

-- 
 Allen Briggs - end killing - briggs@macbsd.com ** MacBSD == NetBSD/mac68k **
   Where does all my time go?  <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">Guess.</a>