pxeboot, NFS and root-path: bug or documentation error?

[Brian Candler]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 01:50:37PM -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
> It uses TFTP to fetch the pxeboot binary itself.  After that, it uses either 
> NFS or TFTP.  By default it uses NFS to access /boot/loader and friends.  If 
> you want it to just use TFTP and not use NFS at all, you need to recompile 
> pxeboot with LOADER_TFTP_SUPPORT=yes defined in make.  That is:
> 
> % cd /sys/boot
> % make clean
> % make LOADER_TFTP_SUPPORT=yes
> % cp /usr/obj/usr/src/sys/boot/i386/pxeldr/pxeboot /usr/tftpboot

Thank you, that's very clear. Re-reading the manpage I do now see the phrase
"selectable through compile-time options"; perhaps it would be worth also
showing those options.

Is there any fundamental reason why both couldn't be compiled in at once,
e.g. limitations on the pxeboot binary size? Or is it just awkward to
implement?

I would have no objection to

    options root-path = "tftp://192.168.0.1/usr/tftpboot"

I would also have no objection to "pxeboot.nfs" and "pxeboot.tftp" being
built :-)

I'll try building the tftp version when back in the office next week.

Thanks again,

Brian.