Multiple BOOTP servers

You may well wish to have a secondary BOOTP server as a back-up to the primary BOOTP server.

The unit will operate with BOOTP when you have a second, third or more BOOTP servers on your network. During a reboot the unit processes the first BOOTP reply received and ignores subsequent replies. If the bootptab file entries are identical on all your BOOTP servers the first reply received by the unit will be the same as the other replies.

The rules for multiple BOOTP servers are:

we recommend they are located on the same network; however if they are on different network see the advice at How to setup BOOTP on page 231

if you specify a bootfile (bf), each BOOTP server must contain an identical copy of this bootfile

the software file (SW_FILE) and/or configuration file (CONFIG_FILE) can be located on any host; they do not have to be on the BOOTP server machines

Example of BOOTP

Here is a working example of BOOTP, used to download a new version of software. We are using tftp with the ‘secure’ option:

1.If possible choose a BOOTP server which is located on the same network as the unit. Our BOOTP server was located like this.

2.Enable BOOTP on the machine you have chosen as the BOOTP server. E.g. on our SCO Open Server 5 machine we modified file /etc/inetd.conf, as follows:

tftp dgram udp wait root /etc/tftpd tftpd -s /tftpboot

bootps dgram udp wait root /etc/bootpd bootpd -c/ tftpboot

3.Reboot the BOOTP server to ensure that BOOTP is operating.

4.Make an entry in file /etc/bootptab for your unit; e.g.

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Black Box 24 port, 16 port manual Multiple Bootp servers, Example of Bootp, 240