This page has two separate parts:
1. Choose your patch where you choose from one of 3 (well , 2 really) patches based on your needs in a DHCP Server: version 2, or version 3.
2. Follow detailed directions or my How-To to configure your server and client to actually netboot in Linux. (No Images provided for you to download from this site. You must have all of the software. The Linux part is "free", and if you have a MacOS CD-ROM for System installation, you can download or find the rest of the software "on the net")

When I first made a set of patch files for making Macintosh Netbooting with non-Apple Server, I created two patch systems. One systems was very uncomplicated but difficult to use with dhcp as you needed to remember numbered options and their use. The second one was a more advanced patch, but it created new naming systems for options codes that were not standard. After creating my code, I stopped improving it. Alistair Riddell took a sample copy of my more advanced patch for dhcp-2.0 (ISC's source code provided dhcp server), and has added much more to it. I only offer my old diff patches for academic purposes. Instead of keeping an unmaintained "fork", I suggest you use his or Rob's patches (see below) and standardize on one of them.

One more layer of complication: (read choice or option) is a new patch for ISC's DHCP server version 3. This patch for verson 3 of the DHCP server was written by Rob Lineweaver. You can check out information on this at http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlineweaver/macnb/ for more information on his maintained patch for ISC's v2.0 DHCP server and allowing it to netboot.

If you would like to use the more recent DHCP server from ISC such as Version 3, Rob Lineweaver has ported the patches from ISC's DHCPv2 to ISC's DHCPv3! (Cool Deal!) Please check out http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlineweaver/macnb/ for more information. He has provided not only a source patche, but RPMs of a dhcp server for various distros of linux.

My original patches are not suppoerted by me. They worked with a no longer available copy of ISC's DHCP Server v2, but I have no time to maintain them. If you really want to see them, then you can browse: in this UNSUPPORTED web folder or in this VERY-UNSUPPORTED web folder (heh) , but you do so at your own risk! (These no longer even allow the latest v2.0 of DHCP server from ISC to compile when applied, so just be nice to yourself and go with Rob's or Alistair's solutions for v3 or v2 DHCP Servers respectively.)

You should still be cautioned to only use one of the three possible packages available. I suggest you go with either Alistair's or Rob's patches depending on which version DHCP server you are planning to run.

With this stated, you will need to get either Alistair Riddell's copy of dhcpd-2.0pl5 patches from: http://frank.gwc.org.uk/%7Eali/nb/dhcp-2.0+macnb.0.1.diff OR Rob Lineweaver's patches (or RPMs) from his web site: http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlineweaver/macnb/.

I have a locally cached copy of Alistair's dhcp v2.0 diff file from Alistair's site in the event his page is unavailable, but please visit his page for his latest release and his comments.)

I have a locally cached copy of Rob's dhcp v3.0 diff file from Rob's site in the event his page is unavailable, but please visit his page for his latest release and his comments.)

Also, on the topic of DHCP Servers. You should only have one installed and running at any one time. You should not try to run a version 3 dhcp server and a verison 2 dhcp server on the same interface on the same network, or even two dhcp servers of the same version. It will most likely not even work, and also likely cause problems on your network. (I could see multiple DHCP servers running on the same box with each on a different interface, and there may be more exceptions, but unless you know what you are doing - only run one server per box, per network/subnet.)

• Shawn Barnhart swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.comWrites:
• Do you know if isc-dhcp3 works out of the box, or does it require patching too?
• To which I respond:
• No. None of the dhcp versions from ISC will work to deal with this as of present, nor does any other DHCP Server I tried. THIS IS NOT THEIR FAULT! Apple broke rules to make their system work. Patches can be made for any of the versions of dhcp client from isc to work around Apple's not adhering to standards, but by default none of the dhcp systems I was able to try could deal with this NetBooting from Apple.

  If you want to run ISC's DHCP Server Version 3, then check out a new set of pacthes for it (as well as some RPMs of prepackages DHCP Server binaries) at http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlineweaver/macnb/ created by Rob Lineweaver.

  (The standard that was broken that caused the patch to be required in a non Apple BootP/DHCP server was the MMS (Maximum Message Size) for BootP requests. I believe that normally, if a client does not state how large of a packet (in bytes) it can receive for response when it sends out a BootP request, the default is supposed to be 64 bytes for vendor extentions. 64 bytes is not enough to pack all of these vendor special options. Just one alone can be over 50 bytes, and in some cases over 60 bytes. The patch makes the "new" dhcp server look to see if option 221 is set in the incoming BootP/DHCP request, and is comparable to the string sent out by the client ("Apple MacNC") when requesting a Net Boot. I could be wrong on this, and if I am, I am sure someone will tell me in an email message that uses ALL CAPS about how I am stupid, clueless and do not know about what I write! ;-)

(Someting missing? Something not descriptive enough? Find a problem? Send me an e-mail with the complaint. Instructions can be found at te end of each of the pages.)

This is a brief description (ha!) of how to make Net-Booting happen with your valid copy of Mac OS 9.1 from CDROM (What I am using in this example), a *NIX box like Linux, a copy of asun-netatalk, a DHCP server, a TFTP server, and a blue and white G3 series PowerMac or later (I am using a G4) or iMac with latest firmware upgrade. I try to offer major points closer to the left margin, and deeper nesting of information offers more detail for those that need or want it.

1. Get your materials ready:
   Get / install:
   1. A Linux server (x86 based Intel for this example) with enough free disk space for Mac HD Images. (~4Gb to be used in this sample)
   2. Install a TFTP server (tftpd) on your server box
      • Note where its service root point is: you will probably want to set its root to be somewhere in your fs root like /tftproot or /tftpboot, or /boot/kernel etc. For this demo, I modified tftpd's root to be "/tftproot".
      • Note: Installing any new service on a server frequently adds risk for security being compromised in the service via buffer over-run, DoS, or information loss. "tftpd" allows for unauthenticated transfer of files. You should not place anything sensitive in tftpd's root.
      • I am using a Debian install for my demo. Its tftpd service is started from inetd in this release of Debian. To modify tftpd's root, I hand edited /etc/inetd.conf after installing tftpd, and changed the argument "/boot" at the end of the line to /tftproot and then created /tftproot , chown root.root and chmod 775
      • For more specific help with tftp and tftpd check with a HOWTO on the subject. http://www.tldp.org/ may have what you need, but locations change too fast for me to keep them up to date.
   3. Get the source code for a DHCP Server (dhcpd) like dhcp-2.0pl5.tar.gz from http://www.isc.org/, or visit ISC's DHCP Server Version 3 page to find out how to get the latest version 3 release candidate.
      • Note: You may consider using one of Rob's RPM source or binary packages on his website.
      • Note: If you have a network admin for the network in which you plan to run your own DHCP Server, you will probably want to speak with them before starting it. Not discussing with them the possible problems with running multiple DHCP Servers on the same serviced network and getting a list of IP addresses you can serve can be risky, and cause you serious problems with your network admin. You have been warned! If you are doing this at home or on your own network, then just try to only use one DHCP Server at a time unless you know what you are doing.
      • I use the above source tree in my example. Yes, dhcpd-3.x from ISC is out and you can use Rob's DHCP v3 patches instead.
      • You may use an alternate DHCP server if you can find a way to have it determine if a booting client is a netbooting Mac, and account for the larger MMS for the service to send the extra vendor options necessary for Macintosh netbooting.
   4. Unpack the DHCP Server source tree and patch it
      • See patches section of this page for where you can get a diff file patch.
      • Make sure your copy of dhcp was downloaded in binary mode (Image Mode) or else unpacking it won't work. If unpacking works fine, then you likely ftp-ed it properly.
      • I suggest you place the dhcp-2.0+macnb.0.1.diff and dhcp-2.0pl5.tar.gz in /usr/local/src on your machine.
      • Unpack the DHCP Service source tree and patch it with my patch

        • # cd /usr/local/src

          
          You should see a new prompt ("#").

        • # zcat dhcp-2.0pl5.tar.gz | tar xvf -

          
          A bunch of files should be uncompressed and unpacked into /usr/local/src. The words you see flying by your screen are what files re being uncompressed and unpacked. Mine ended with the last three lines of the extraction showing:
          

          dhcp-2.0pl5/server/dhcpd.conf.cat5
          dhcp-2.0pl5/server/dhcpd.leases.5
          dhcp-2.0pl5/server/dhcpd.leases.cat5
          

        • # patch -p0 < dhcp-2.0+macnb.0.1.diff

          
          This should patch the dhcp-2.0pl5 source tree. This patch includes my addition of dealing with the Apple-MMS-DHCP bug and includes more code from Alistair Riddell allows this DHCP Service to know how to better tell the difference between a netbooting Mac client and a non-netbooting Mac client. In this patch, only 6 files are patched. Here is what you might see after applying the above patch command:

          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/common/options.c'
          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/common/tables.c'
          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/includes/dhcp.h'
          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/includes/dhcpd.h'
          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/server/bootp.c'
          patching file `dhcp-2.0pl5/server/dhcp.c'
          

          You may wish to instead try patches created by Rob Lineweaver for version 3 of the DHCP Server from ISC. These can be found at http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlineweaver/macnb/

   5. Make the new DHCP Service

      • # cd /usr/local/src/dhcp-2.0pl5/

        
        Allows me to change dirs to the source tree.

      • # ./configure

        
        This is a program that tells ISC's dhcp source tree what kind of system you have so it may properly be compiled to work for your system. In this case, I am running Linux and a 2.2 series kernel, so configure reported:

        System Type: linux-2.2
        

      • # make all

        
        This should go through and compile a DHCP Server. The last lines in my build of the DHCP service binaries gave me a warning about needing to migrate my DHCP leases directory. if you have never run DHCP server then you can ignore this. If you have run a DHCP server with a different storage location for DHCP leases, then like me, you know what this means and will abide by its instructions. (Configuring your desktop workstation to use DHCP for IP Assignment is an example of a client for DHCP not a server. A Server is what hands out the addresses, and is usually admined by your network admin.
        Also, this release of the patch file does not permit the dhcpcd (dhcp client for obtaining leases) compile. You will need to manually copy over the dhcpd server.
        You may see this page of output from make letting you know the client did not compile and caused the compilation process to terminate:

        Making all in client
        make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/dhcp-2.0pl5/client'
        cc -g  -I.. -I../includes -DLINUX_MAJOR=2 -DLINUX_MINOR=2 -DCLIENT_PATH='"PATH=/usr/ucb:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin"'   -c -o dhclient.o dhclient.c
        dhclient.c: In function `make_discover':
        dhclient.c:1455: warning: passing arg 8 of `cons_options' makes integer from pointer without a cast
        dhclient.c:1455: too few arguments to function `cons_options'
        dhclient.c: In function `make_request':
        dhclient.c:1567: warning: passing arg 8 of `cons_options' makes integer from pointer without a cast
        dhclient.c:1567: too few arguments to function `cons_options'
        dhclient.c: In function `make_decline':
        dhclient.c:1671: warning: passing arg 8 of `cons_options' makes integer from pointer without a cast
        dhclient.c:1671: too few arguments to function `cons_options'
        dhclient.c: In function `make_release':
        dhclient.c:1736: warning: passing arg 8 of `cons_options' makes integer from pointer without a cast
        dhclient.c:1736: too few arguments to function `cons_options'
        make[1]: *** [dhclient.o] Error 1
        make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/dhcp-2.0pl5/client'
        make: *** [all] Error 1
        

        If you need dhcpcd (a dhcp client) then you can install one from a package, or use the source code to make a client and server, then install, and then patch the source tree and make a new server only. I am assuming you have a system for getting your IP address, and only the dhcp server for netbooting Macs is missing.

      • # cp /usr/local/src/dhcp-2.0pl5/server/dhcpd /usr/sbin/dhcpd

        
        You may want to "mv" (move) your old dhcpd server to a new location like /usr/sbin/dhcpd.orig before you perform the above as it will over-write whatever was there before.
      • You may wish to examine Rob's patch instead. If it compiles cleanly, then instead of the above "cp" commans, you could type:

        # make install
        

        but may want to think about that step. If you "make install" you may overwrite a previous dhcp server you installed. Please be cautious! Manually copying just the server as an executable may be a better idea.
   6. Install a copy an of AppleFileshare service that can do AppleShare over IP such as the asun-netatalk. You may try this with a packaged copy which is often easiest or get your own source tree and compile it.
      • You can try to see if there is a new copy at ftp://ftp.cobaltnet.com/pub/users/asun/ or look at http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/ if you wish. I am going to take the easy way out, and use a prepackaged copy with my Debian Linux install.
      • When you see "netatalk" you should also verify that it is either a new "asun" distro (which can do AppleShare over IP) or is another that can do AppleShare over IP.
   7. Get the necessary networking information for setting up a client on your network to access the Internet (or intranet, extranet, othernet, etc. that uses TCP/IP.)
      All of this information will be used when configuring the dhcp server (in /etc/dhcpd.conf ) by using the on-line form - will be discussed later
      • An Example list may include:
        • Range or group of IP Addresses to hand out to clients
        • Subnet Mask (Netmask) for the IP Addresses above
        • Gateway/Router for above Subnet Mask (Netmask) and range of IP Addresses you have been given
        • Compute the network address/name for the network that is limited by the above Subnet Mask and contains the IP Addresses listed above. (I'll try to find how-to's to explain this procedure and link to them from here. If you know about this, then the network address/name is the very first IP address of the chosen subnet that often ends with a zero "0".)
        • Compute the broadcast address for the network that is limited by the above Subnet Mask and contains the IP Addresses listed above. (I'll try to find how-to's to explain this procedure and link to them from here. If you know about this, then the broadcast address is the last IP of the chosen subnet often ending in "255".
        • The MAC (Media Access Channel) Address/HW (Hardware) Address, ENet (Ethernet) Address of the machine that will be looking to netboot. This should be 6 hexadecimal values often separated with colons (":"). For Mac running Mac OS 8 or 9, you can go to the TCP/IP control panel and choose GET INFO from one of the pull down menus, or click a button INFO in the control panel or press COMMAND-I. (Earlier Mac OS Versions allowed OPTION clicking on the interface in the networking or MacTCP control panel, but that is off topic.)
        • Choose a unique name for your Macintosh that will be different from other names assigned to netbooting machine. For my Demo, I will use "mac-nc01"
        • Figure out a password. It will be passed across the net in plain text, so make sure it is not a "secure" password used in encrypted transactions or your ATM card PIN. ;-) When you use the form, I suggest you do not use the password you think of now, as the posting of the form will send your chosen password across to my server and back in plain-text and back again. The output text can be copied and pasted into the /etc/dhcpd.conf text file, and it should be obvious where you would locally edit the file to store your real chosen password for network access.
   8. Install Mac OS (In this case, Mac OS 9.1 on a G4)
      • I'll assume you can do this on your own. Some suggestions:
        • Start out from scratch: delete all data on your HD, repartition the drive, and format, low-level (if possible) and zero-out HD (Initialization Options with Apples HD Utility.)
        • Initially, make 3 partitions:
          1. Install your System on partition 1 (I set this to use 1Gb) Note:You will want to make your images smaller than 2Gb if using Linux 2.2 or earlier kernels due to the maximum file size limit. 2.4 series kernels are not limited by 2Gb for file sizes. I called my partition 1 / volume 1 "HD1".

             NOTE: Please allow extra space when you make your partitions that will be imaged and make sure that you do not shrink the image being built to match the exact size of data with no free space.
             A problem was reported by Dan Baker who also found the solution [Credit included to him on this] (more info below):

             The encountered problem had the following characteristics:
             • The client machine would start to boot
             • Get the required information from the DHCP server (where to tftp the ROM file, the username, password and locations of AS/IP volumes to mount and where to find the images, etc.)
             • Complete a tftp download the MacOS ROM from the server
             • Load and use the "MacOS ROM" file
             • Continue the netboot procees using AppleShare over IP (AS/IP)
             • Log into the AS/IP (asun-netatalk) network fileshare with the proper username and password. (This information can be found in the netatalk log file.)
             • Client then disconnects from share, and reboots (or hangs).

               After some work, Dan Baker troubleshot, diagnosed, and fixed the problem - Insufficient free space in the image. (This is not an obvious solution, so please take warning now and leave enough free space on the partition you will image as well as the image itself!)

               How much is enough? I would suggest the following: (2 * (Total Client RAM in MB) + 100MB), but you are always welcome to experiment!

               If you have the above problems, take this into consideration when making a new image at this step. (Thanks Dan for the work in finding this problem and solution!)

          2. Install your Applications on partition 2 (I set this to use 1Gb) Note:You will want to make your images smaller than 2Gb if using Linux 2.2 or earlier kernels due to the maximum file size limit. 2.4 series kernels are not limited by 2Gb for file sizes.I called my partition 2 / volume 2 "HD2".
          3. Partition 3 may be used to temporarily store images of partitions 1 and 2 so partition 3 should be at least the size of partition 1 plus partition 2.I called my partition 3 / volume 3 "HD3".
        • After you are done imaging the partitions, and moving them to the server (later) you can destroy the 3 partition system and install your local OS on one big partition. Dont forget to make sure the newly created image has extra "free" space! (See warning above.)
        • If you have the option to install your OS for "Any Macintosh" even though it will install extensions and control panels you can't use, do it. It will make netbooting from other models easier and does not use that much more space.
        • After your OS is installed, run the Apple Software update, and update it all.
        • Make sure your Networking settings on the installation are set to use DHCP for IP resolution. Make as many settings as possible automatically gathered from the network. Either leave the name of the machine blank (in AppleShare control panel) or remember what you set it to use.
        • Eliminate the trash and readme files/folders that you do not need. I would suggest you do not disable extensions and control panels unless you are sure you will never need them.
        • If you have a utility for defragmenting and optimizing your HD, try to put it on floppy so it can be used just before imaging the 2 partitions. You do not need to do this, but it could improve performance from the server assuming the server's stored image file is not fragmented during the copy later.
        • You may also want to disable Virtual memory at a cost: Applications assume you have lots of RAM when you disable this, but OTOH, you can remove the HD from the machine. Your call.
        • You may want to have Netscape and MSIE use ZERO Disk space for caching documents. This is especially handy when you set the System Volume to be Read Only for guest users. :-/
        • I Added a RAM Disk of 4Mb because I have 256Mb on this G4 used in testing.
        • Many of the above settings help decrease traffic across the wire - especially for memory issues with virtual memory!
        • Many of the above help contribute towards allowing you to make all of your booting system image not need any writes or updates so you could possibly make all of the images that are "shared" into READ ONLY images for multiple clients to share. For testing purposes and for single users, you may want to keep your booting system as readable and writable. For larger implementations, you will want to secure your booting images, and share them among several users to conserve disk space.
   9. Further configure your Mac OS installation before imaging:
      • You may want to examine some of the suggested settings above before examining these settings.
      • You should either:
        • Choose to use the Extension Manager and disable the "Multiple Users" control panel and the "Multiple Users Startup" Extension, or
        • if you choose to keep them enabled, set a username and password
          If you choose to enable Multiple Users instead of disabling it, then:
          1. Locate and open/run the Multiple Users control panel on the Mac you are setting up.
          2. Double-click the "owner" icon and you should see a new window pop up.
          3. Set a username and password. For convenience, I set the same username as I used in the dhcpd config (in example form submission for mac-nc01 as seen later), but the password was not the same as what I used in my /etc/dhcpd.conf. Then close this window and return to the control panel window.
          4. From the control panel window choose "Options"
          5. In the new window that is spawned, choose the "Other" tab.
          6. I chose to click to enable guest access. Your choice on this is left to you.
          7. Make sure the radio buttons for "choose names with pull down menus" and "Multiple user accounts (local)" are selected unless you know to do otherwise.
          8. Choose to "Save" and then once back at the open control panel, choose to close it.
          9. I chose to enable Multiple User Access within this window. The most important thing is to set a password.
   10. You may want to examine some of Apple's Software for managing Macintosh machines. If so, you may start with ftp://ftp.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Mac_OS_X_Server/. No more detail on that software is discussed here at this time, but is left to the reader.
2. Create images of the two partitions (You can just use a System partition if you don't want the application partition to be mounted as a volume) Dont forget! Allow free space im your image or suffer! (See notice above on free space in the partition )
   • The Mac OS 9.1 Generic Install CD comes with Disk Copy 6.33. When you boot from the Mac OS 9.1 CD (which can be done on modern Macs by powering down the computer with the bootable MacOS (in this case 9.1) install CD and holding down the "c" key until you see the "happy mac" face on your screen in the center), and do not run or access files from the first two partitions, you can be pretty sure, you have no open files, or weirdness on those partitions. This allows you to make fairly safe images of the partitions not in use. (You should be able to locate Disk Copy in the Utilities folder of the CD-ROM.)
   • To image a partition or volume you see mounted, drag the volume onto the Disk Copy application. A new window will come up. Choose to save the image as a "Read/Write image". (Do not Choose: "read-only" or "read-only compressed"!) Make the saving location the 3rd partition/volume and make sure you leave free space (now noted as result of information from Dan Baker where insufficient free space on the image would cause a failure of the netbooting clients as they tried to connect to the netatalk server and use the image.)
   • After you have all of your images desired, you can reboot your machine off the HD to have network Access for moving the image files to the server as well as the special "Mac OS ROM" file*.
     *- You should read the rights to your license before copying over the ROM file. It may be illegal for you to copy this file without permission in writing from Apple computers. If you have legal questions on any of this, you should consult a lawyer as I am not offering legal advice on what you should do legally - only what can be done with the right equipment and this information.
     A problem with this procedure was reported by Dan Baker [Credit included to him on this] (more info below):

     When you place the images on the server, if they are placed up there with read/write permission for your "Netbooting Macintosh User" then only one user can use that image at a time. (Exclusive write access.) This will prevent other users from being able to net boot. (Dan Reports "Error -60" which makes sense when you think about it.) Thanks Dan!

     For this, you have two know solutions, and maybe more:

     1. Some method to ensure that user has only read access to the image/file: (chown to root or some other non netboot user and group should work too so long as the last octal is not set with a write bit.)

        # chmod 444 image.name.img

     2. Make one image for each and every station and make sure each stations gets a custom boot message on what image to get. (This of course allows thes netbooted systems to be modified unless other security software is included.)