Supporting Solaris Network Installation With the DHCP Service

You can use DHCP to install the Solaris Operating System on certain client systems on your network. Only sun4u-based systems and x86 systems that meet the hardware requirements for running the Solaris OS can use this feature. For information about using DHCP to automatically configure client systems for the network as they boot, see Chapter 2, Preconfiguring System Configuration Information (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations.

DHCP also supports Solaris client systems that boot and install remotely from servers across a wide area network (WAN) using HTTP. This method of remote booting and installing is called the WAN boot installation method. Using WAN boot, you can install the Solaris OS on SPARC based systems over a large public network where the network infrastructure might be untrustworthy. You can use WAN boot with security features to protect data confidentiality and installation image integrity.

Before you can use DHCP for booting and installing client systems remotely using WAN boot, the DHCP server must be configured to supply the following information to clients:

• The proxy server's IP address

• The location of the wanboot—cgi program

For details about configuring the DHCP server to provide this information, see Chapter 2, Preconfiguring System Configuration Information (Tasks), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations. For information about booting and installing client systems with a DHCP server across a WAN, see Chapter 9, WAN Boot (Overview), in Solaris Express Installation Guide: Network-Based Installations.

For information about supporting diskless clients, see Supporting Remote Boot and Diskless Boot Clients (Task Map).