Group items tagged

Understanding the content of the DHCP and BSDP communication between NetBoot servers and NetBoot clients can provide excellent insight for troubleshooting the NetBoot process. In this article I explain the components of a typical DHCP packet, dig deeper into the vendor options and BSDP-specific options, then I describe the NetBoot process from the NetBoot server perspective.

For individual Mac users or small businesses, it's usually not a problem deploying new Macs with a standard image -- as a Mac support specialist, you might just load each machine manually. But imagine if you need to deploy hundreds or thousands of Macs, PCs, or XServes. You'd need a small army of techs or a way to do the job automatically. That's where DeployStudio comes in handy. This freeware tool can be used to create deployment files using Netboot, external USB or FireWire drives, or any AFP, SMB, or NFS sharepoint on the network.