How to setup network with diskless workstation?

[Dwij]

hello friends,
I would like to setup a server using diskless windows 2000/xp workstation. Does anyone know how to setup or any website that shows on how to setup a diskless workstation to run windows from the 2003 server. Can anyone know how to set up it ?

[Big Fish]

There are many ways to set up diskless workstations. Many elements are involved, and most can be customized to suit local taste.
The following will describe variations on the setup of a complete system, emphasizing simplicity and compatibility with the standard FreeBSD startup scripts.

The system described has the following characteristics:

1. The diskless workstations use a shared read-only / file system, and a shared read-only /usr.
The root file system is a copy of a standard FreeBSD root (typically the server's), with some configuration files overridden by ones specific to diskless operation or, possibly, to the workstation they belong to.
The parts of the root which have to be writable are overlaid with md(4) file systems. Any changes will be lost when the system reboots.

2. The kernel is transferred and loaded either with Etherboot or PXE as some situations may mandate the use of either method.

Caution: This system is insecure. It should live in a protected area of a network, and be untrusted by other hosts.

[Shen]

A FreeBSD machine can boot over the network and operate without a local disk, using file systems mounted from an NFS server. No system modification is necessary, beyond standard configuration files.
Such a system is relatively easy to set up because all the necessary elements are readily available:

• There are at least two possible methods to load the kernel over the network:
  
  
  • PXE: The Intel® Preboot eXecution Environment system is a form of smart boot ROM built into some networking cards or motherboards. See pxeboot(8) for more details.
    
  • The Etherboot port (net/etherboot) produces ROM-able code to boot kernels over the network. The code can be either burnt into a boot PROM on a network card, or loaded from a local floppy (or hard) disk drive, or from a running MS-DOS® system. Many network cards are supported.
  
  
• A sample script (/usr/share/examples/diskless/clone_root) eases the creation and maintenance of the workstation's root file system on the server. The script will probably require a little customization but it will get you started very quickly.
  
• Standard system startup files exist in /etc to detect and support a diskless system startup.
  
• Swapping, if needed, can be done either to an NFS file or to a local disk.

To get the detailed setup instructions : visit here

[Steve123]

To setup a Network with Diskless Workstations using Debian GNU/Linux

The topology consists of a Debian-based server providing an other (from the server basically independent) Debian-based Linux installation for the clients' "/"-systems. The kernel version used is 2.4.19, IPs are dynamically assigned using ISC's DHCP daemon.

Several diskless clients can be used simultaneously, as /etc, /var and /tmp (as well as some swap space) are kept in seperate directories on the server. (They are automatically regenerated each time a client boots.)
As usual, /proc is used on each client.
/dev will be generated automatically using devfs(d). This way, each client has it's own /dev directory according to its hardware. (Remember: devfs is a similar "non-existing" filesystem as is used for /proc.)

The advantage : the clients make use of only one 1MB ramdisk, thus it's possible to use a fully qualified (diskless) Linux with X (and e.g. IceWM as the window manager) with "only" a P166 and 64MB of RAM.

The disadvantage: as we are storing lot's of data (/etc, /var, /tmp, swap) on the server's disk, this solution makes heavy use of the network.