> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 21:24:34 -0400 (EDT)
> From: der Mouse  <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

[...]
> More generally, I've been thinking about ways to do secure diskless
> boot.  Obviously, the diskless machine needs some information which is
> secret, either secret to just that machine or shared between that
> machine and its boot server.  In the case of Suns, for example, one
> could use the hostid from the idprom, or possibly the firmware password
> (most ROM sets I've seen display the hostid on power-up).  [...]

The hostid is not secret, because the last part of the ethernet
address IS the last three bytes of the hostid, and the first byte
of the hostid is the machine model (which is easy to guess).
The ethernet address is broadcast during RARP, of course...

Gordon