Apple Mac OS X Server (Administrator’s Guide) - Manual (Page 488)

488 Chapter 12
You cannot update Mac OS X disk images directly. To “update” your Mac OS X disk images,
you must create new ones. See “Creating a Mac OS X Disk Image” on page 496.
To update Mac OS 9 disk images, see “Modifying the Mac OS 9 Disk Image” on page 498.
Ethernet support on client computers
NetBoot is supported only over the built-in Ethernet connection. Multiple Ethernet ports are
not supported on client computers.
Network Requirements
The recommended method of provided IP addressing for NetBoot clients is DHCP. However,
some older client computers require BootP for IP address assignment when using NetBoot.
When this is the case, there can be only one server providing BootP addressing on the
network to which those clients are attached. See the following section, “Capacity Planning,”
for more information on this topic and other issues relevant to your network configuration
when using NetBoot.
The following Macintosh computers require BootP addressing for NetBoot:
m tray-loading iMac computers
m Power Macintosh G3 (blue and white) computers
Capacity Planning
The number of NetBoot client computers you can connect to your server depends on how
your server is configured, the server’s hard disk space, and a number of other factors.
In planning for your server and network needs, consider these factors:
m Ethernet speed: 100Base-T or faster connections are required for both client computers
and the server. As you add more clients, you may need to increase the speed of your
server’s Ethernet connections. Ideally you want to take advantage of the Gigabit Ethernet
capacity built in to your Mac OS X server hardware to connect to a Gigabit switch. From
the switch you should connect Gigabit Ethernet or 100 Mb Ethernet to each of the
NetBoot clients.
m Hard disk capacity and number of NetBoot images: The NetBoot server requires a
certain amount of hard disk space depending on the size and configuration of the system
image and the number of images being served.
m Hard disk capacity and number of users: If you have a large number of users, consider
adding a separate file server to your network to store user documents. Because the
system software for a disk image is written to a shadow image for each client booting from
the disk image, you can get a rough estimate for the required hard disk capacity required
by multiplying the size of the shadow image by the number of clients.