Diskless Clients

A diskless client has no disk and depends on a server for all its software and storage needs. A diskless client remotely mounts its root (/), /usr, and /home file systems from a server.

A diskless client generates significant network traffic due to its continual need to procure operating system software and virtual memory space from across the network. A diskless client cannot operate if it is detached from the network or if its server malfunctions.

For more overview information about diskless clients, see Diskless Client Management Overview.

AutoClient Systems

An AutoClient system is nearly identical to a diskless client in terms of installation and administration. An AutoClient system has the following characteristics:

• Requires a minimum of a 100-Mbyte local disk for swapping and for caching its individual root (/) file system and the /usr file system from a server

• Can be set up so that it continues to access its cache when the server is unavailable

• Relies on a server to access other file systems and software applications

• Contains no permanent data, making it a field-replaceable unit (FRU)

Appliances

An appliance, such as the Sun Ray appliance, is an X display device that requires no administration. There is no CPU, fan, disk, and very little memory. An appliance is connected to a Sun display monitor, but the appliance user's desktop session is run on a server and displayed back to the user. The X environment is setup automatically for the user and has the following characteristics:

• Relies on a server to access other file systems and software applications

• Provides centralized software administration and resource sharing

• Contains no permanent data, making it a field-replaceable unit (FRU)

Guidelines for Choosing System Types

You can determine which system types are appropriate for your environment by comparing each system type based on the following characteristics:

• Centralized Administration

  • Can the system be treated as a field-replaceable unit (FRU)? This means that a broken system can be quickly replaced with a new system without any lengthy backup and restore operations and no loss of system data.

  • Does the system need to be backed up? Large costs in terms of time and resources can be associated with backing up a large number of desktop systems.

  • Can the system's data be modified from a central server?

  • Can the system be installed from a centralized server, quickly and easily, without handling the client system's hardware?

• Performance

  • Does this configuration perform well in desktop usage?

  • Does the addition of systems on a network affect the performance of other systems already on the network?

• Disk Space Usage

  • How much disk space is required to effectively deploy this configuration?

This table describes how each system type scores in terms of each category. A ranking of 1 is most efficient. A ranking of 4 is least efficient.

Table 7-2 Comparison of System Types

Diskless Client Management Overview

The following sections and Chapter 8, Managing Diskless Clients (Tasks) describe how to manage diskless client support in the Solaris 9 release.

A diskless client is a system that depends on an OS server for its operating system, software, and storage. A diskless client mounts its root (/), /usr, and other file systems from its OS server. A diskless client has its own CPU and physical memory and can process data locally. However, a diskless client cannot operate if it is detached from its network or if its OS server malfunctions. A diskless client generates significant network traffic because of its continual need to function across the network.

In previous Solaris releases, diskless clients were managed with the Solstice graphical management tools. In the Solaris 9 release, the diskless client commands, smosservice and smdiskless, enable you to manage OS services and diskless client support.

OS Server and Diskless Client Support Information

The following table describes which Solaris releases and architecture types are supported by the smosservice and smdiskless commands.

This table describes the combination of OS server-client configurations that are supported by the smosservice and smdiskless commands.

	Solaris 2.6 Release Support	Solaris 7 Release Support	Solaris 8 1/01, 4/01, 7/01, 10/01, 2/02 Support	Solaris 9 Support
OS Server-Client OS Release	Solaris 2.6-Solaris 2.6	Solaris 7-Solaris 2.6, or 7	Solaris 8 1/01, 4/01, 7/01, 10/01, 2/02-Solaris 2.6, 7, or 8 1/01, 4/01, 7/01, 10/01, 2/02	Solaris 9-Solaris 2.6, 7, 8 1/01, 4/01, 7/01, 10/01, 2/02

Diskless Client Management Features

You can use the smosservice and smdiskless commands to add and maintain diskless client support on a network. By using a name service, you can manage system information in a centralized manner so that important system information, such as host names, does not have to be duplicated on every system in the network.

You can do the following tasks with the smosservice and smdiskless commands:

• Add and modify diskless client support

• Add and remove OS services

• Manage diskless client information in the LDAP, NIS, NIS+, or files environment

You can only use the diskless client commands to set up diskless client booting. You cannot use them to set up other services, such as remote installation or profile services. Set up remote installation services by including diskless client specifications in the sysidcfg file. For more information, see Solaris 9 12/03 Installation Guide.