Excerpts from netbsd: 16-Jun-97 Re: README: changes to conf.. Gordon W.
Ross@mc.com (985)

> The server IP address is given in this field of a reply:
> 	struct in_addr bp_siaddr;
> Is there any problem with using that?

The problem I have in mind is when I netboot
an alpha: The console firmware issues a bootp
to get the second stage loader. The bp_siaddr
is used as TFTP server.
If the kernel issues an identical request it will
get the same answer. If one doesn't want the
same server for TFTP and NFS, he has a problem.

So a keyword in the bootp request can help, but
I think the standard bootpd cannot be configured
to give different answers depending on the keyword
- the decision is: answer (if file present) or not
(if not).
It would be easier to use a different tag for the
root server, but I have no idea, which. There
are tags for all kinds of stuff, including domain-,
time- and syslogservers, but nothing primarily
dedicated to a root file system.

> Also, there is a standard (RFC 1395) "tag" for the "root path"
> that I'm using for the NFS mount root.  Any problem there?

No, that's OK.

> On netbsd, it may
> be possible for the file name given to the boot program to be
> copied into the BOOTP request, or if that name is not available,
> just fill "netbsd" in there.  Would that be OK?

Yes. The boot program should be able to pass the name
to the kernel. But this is another story.

best regards
Matthias