Make Your Regular Mac a NetBoot Server!

Step 9 Finish Up The Server Settings...

The last couple of settings for the Server have to be done in the Terminal program. This is because we're creating a link (alias) in an invisible folder. This process sets up the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) that serves up the Boot Loader and Kernel to the client Macs.

Launch the Terminal application and enter the following lines at the prompt (picture 1):

mkdir /private/tftpboot
ln -s /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0 /private/tftpboot/NetBoot

That's it! The Server is setup.

You might want to check your work. To do so from Finder, select Go to Folder... from the Go menu and enter /private in the resulting dialog box (picture 2). Now verify that the tftpboot folder and an alias (note the curved arrow) called NetBoot within it exists (picture 3).

Restart your Mac to turn the NetBoot Server on...

In the following steps we're going to create three different NetBoot Images as examples to get you started...

Comments

[vajun]

Hi, This guide is amazing. Though i was not able to follow the procedures because am using Leopard. Its great if you can give us a guide using Leopard.Looking forward to your response.

Cheers

[alexhoward]

Your screen shot of the terminal seems incorrect. You're creating a folder called Netboot in /private/tftpboot so you end up with an error when you try and create a link there by the same name.

[etherbob]

I think there may be a problem with this step. Shouldn't it be:

ln -s /Library/NetBoot /private/tftpboot/NetBoot

?

[LasVegas]

No. This is, and should be a link to your NetBootSP0 folder. That is where TFTP finds the netboot images to boot from. Also, don't make the mistake of not creating the folder prior to this command. It doesn't seem necessary, but it won't work without it.