man rpld (8): an RPL/RIPL remote boot server

SYNOPSIS

rpld [-f] [-C configfile] [-i iface] [-s sap] [-h]

WARRANTY

rpld DOES NOT come with ANY WARRANTY, NOT even an IMPLIED WARRANTY.

OPTIONS

-f: this flag causes rpld to run in the foreground, and not to fork and run as a daemon.
-C configfile: causes rpld to read configfile rather than the default configuration file.
-i iface: causes rpld to bind to network interface iface rather than the default. Because of the limitations of the LLC 802.2 protocol rpld can only bind to one interface.
-s sap: changes the SAP number that rpld binds to. The IBM standard says this should be 0xf8 but most network cards seem to use 0xfc and some even use 0xf4. You can specify the sap as either a hex number with a leading 0x or a decimal one. Beware of specificing a SAP number which is used for system control packets on a machine with native llc support.
-h: causes rpld to print a brief help message.

DESCRIPTION

rpld will net-boot IBM style RPL boot ROMs. Communication between the client and the server is done in LLC-1 ui/C frames with the source and destination SAP both being 0xfc. On booting the client transmits a FIND frame containing the client's MAC address, adapter type and frame length. The server replies with a FOUND frame containing the server's MAC address and a possibly smaller frame length. The client issues a SEND.FILE.REQUEST frame requesting the first block of the boot file. The server then issues a sequence of FILE.DATA.RESPONSE frames with increasing block numbers. The FILE.DATA.RESPONSE frames contain a load address and an execute address and a flag. If the client fails to receive a FILE.DATA.RESPONSE frame within a certain period it sends another SEND.FILE.REQUEST frame requesting the block which follows the last block that was successfully received. On the last FILE.DATA.RESPONSE frame the server sets a special value of the flags which cause the client to transfer execution to the execute address specified in the frame.

The server starts by reading the configuration file in /etc/rpld.conf, see rpld.conf(5), After the configuration file has been read, it opens the system's default network interface and listens for RPL frames. The server recalculates the length of all the files to be downloaded every time it receives a SEND.FILE.REQUEST frame.

BUGS

Solenopsis invicta Burens
rpld doesn't support the new bzImage format correctly.
rpld doesn't reload the first 512 octets of Linux kernels automatically.
There is no way to make rpld re-read its configuration file.
When concurrently serving multiple clients rpld will choose the pacing value of the slowest one.
Partial ethernet addresses should be specified in bits not bytes.
rpld needs to meet more network adapters.

NOTES

IBM is a trademark of IBM Corp.

and the makefile in the distribution for more information.

FILES

/usr/sbin/rpld
/etc/rpld.conf
/rplboot