Apple Mac OS X Server (Administrator’s Guide) - Manual (Page 505)

NetBoot 505
The bsdpd_clients file on any given server holds the Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC)
addresses of the machines that have selected this server as their NetBoot server. As long as a
client has an entry in an available server bsdpd_client file, it will always boot from that server.
If that server should become unavailable to those clients, they will locate and associate
themselves with an available server until such time as you remove their entries (or the entire
files) from their servers. (If a client ends up being registered on more than one server
because an unavailable server comes back on line, the client boots from the server with the
fewest number of clients booted off of it.)
Using Share Points to Spread the Load
By default, NetBoot creates share points for client shadow images on all server volumes in
order to spread the load across multiple drive mechanisms. You can use Workgroup Manager
to see these share points. They are named NetBootSPx where x is the share point number—
the share points are numbered starting with zero. For instance, if your server has two
volumes installed (NetBootSP0 and NetBootSP1), NetBoot stores the first client’s shadow
image on NetBootSP0, the second client’s shadow image on NetBootSP1, the third client’s
shadow image on NetBootSP0, and so on. Likewise, with three volumes installed and eight
clients, the first, fourth, and seventh clients will use the first volume; the second, fifth, and
eighth clients will use the second volume; and the third and sixth clients will use the third
volume.This load balancing is automatic and usually ensures optimal performance.
With drive sizes getting larger and larger, some sites elect to partition their drives. An
example would be partitioning a 60GB drive into a 10GB boot partition and a 50GB data
partition, with the intention of keeping just your operating system and associated
configuration files on the boot partition, and all user data (such as client shadow images) on
the data partition. After installation of the NetBoot software, however, there will be a
NetBootSP0 on the boot partition and a NetBootSP1 on the data partition.
Supporting Client Computers
See “Client Computer Requirements” on page 487 for a list of supported Macintosh
computers and the client system requirements for using NetBoot.
Updating the Startup Disk Control Panel
You need to replace the Startup Disk control panel for client computers running Mac OS 9 in
order for the control panel to be able to display the available NetBoot disk images.
Version 9.2.4 of the Startup Disk control panel is located on the NetBoot, Mac OS 9 CD.
m Drag the new version of the control panel to the System Folder of each client computer
running Mac OS 9 locally.