jumpstarting across networks

Hello Sun Managers,

This comes up again and again, but I figured I check to see how
people are handling this these days..

I am trying to jumpstart across 10.X.X.X subnets, all of which
are /24 nets. I have rarp/bootparams/tftp/dhcp services on each subnet -
all of which work just fine. It is the OS image tree that I am trying to
keep singular that is the issue (to avoid duplicating gigs upon gigs of
data). I have tried with both the bootparams and DHCP methods with no
luck, which is consistent with the advertised limitations of both from
Solaris 8 through 10.

Using bootparams, inetboot has no way to detemine it's own
subnet mask and assumes /8 for any 10.X.X.X net. This means it thinks
the OS image host is on the local subnet and tries to ARP for the
address. ARP-proxy'ing would work with a regular router, but we also
have firewall in the mix. NAT's work but are more of a hassle than an
ARP proxy, though we're using them for now.

DHCP has a reponse size limitation of 255 chars. With the
copious paths required for a jumpstart, it makes fitting the entire
response into packet tricky. It can work, but then all of files have to
come off directories that are too close to / to allow for reasonable
file organization, and you still run the risk with long hostnames, in
some cases, of running over the 255 limit. This is just too tenuous of
a solution.

Sun basically refuses to address the inetboot netmask limitation,
and the DHCP limitation is apparenly out of its hands.

So...

Does anyone have a home-grown inetboot or know of any DHCP tricks...
or anything else?

Thanks for any help.

Brian
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