Boot procedure on old SPARCs

[Guenter Millahn <Guenter.Millahn@Informatik.TU-Cottbus.DE>]

Dear Linux'ers,

I have some old diskless SPARCstations of 4c and 4m series (SLC, LC, LX).
I want to re-animate them as Desktopsthem using Debian.

The Boot/Rootserver is a  Sun E450 running Solaris8. I want to  set up
a DHCP server for easier maintainance of my computers.

And here are my questions:
1. Can anybody send me a pointer to document/URL where is explained
   the Old SPARCstation diskless boot sequence in detail (explanations
   here are also welcome ;-)
2. Is it enough to install the Solaris8 DHCP Server Software on the E450
   or do I need any of rarpd and tftpd?
3. Are the Bootproms of the old SPARCs able to generate bootp requests
   and to process bootp replies or is RARP/TFTP the only way to map MAC
   to IP address for these machines and boot 'em up?

Thanks a lot for your time
Guenter
-- 
Dipl.-Ing. Guenter Millahn         Brandenburg University of Technology
Systems, Network & DB Admin        CS Dept / DB & IS Research Group
Voice: +49 (355) 69-2272/2700      P.O. Box: 10 13 44
Fax:   +49 (355) 69-2766           D-03013 Cottbus              GERMANY

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