A primer on diskless booting using NFS root

Although it can handle `diskful' machines, oneSIS was designed primarily for managing diskless (NFSroot) nodes. Configuring machines to run diskless (to boot and run off the network) is not a new concept. The technique has been available for several years and does not require oneSIS or other similar software. oneSIS enables an administrator to cope easily with the main peculiarity of running diskless: managing a read-only shared root filesystem.

Linux and DHCP enable diskless machines. oneSIS enables desired elements of the root filesystem to `become' writable and allows functional groups of nodes or individual nodes to use different variations of the root filesystem. For a primer on configuring machines to run diskless, read the NFSroot HOWTO at http://onesis.org/NFSroot-HOWTO.php.