Re: Diskless installs?

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Thu, Aug 07, 2025 at 09:04:08PM -0700, Chris Hanson wrote:
> This type of "dance" is why macOS has the following symlinks, first established by NeXT nearly 40 years ago:
> 
> - /etc ? /private/etc
> - /var ? /private/var
> - /tmp ? /private/tmp
> 
> Then each diskless client can share a single read-only root, with each system having its own read-write /private, created from a template by the script/tool that adds a new client system and discovered via directory binding. NeXT had its own directory (NetInfo) but could also use NIS and I think NIS+; in the modern era, macOS uses LDAP natively as specified by the appropriate DHCP option, and can also use ActiveDirectory.

I use a tmpfs as /tmp on most machines (especially the diskless ones)
and often even as /dev (just rm anything in the /dev dir on the server
and make sure the proper version of MAKEDEV is in /etc).

But this is not the default install.

The trick mouse used is quite elegant and works well.

Martin