DHCPv6 Options for Network Boot
RFC 5970
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) T. Huth
Request for Comments: 5970 J. Freimann
Category: Standards Track IBM Germany R&D GmbH
ISSN: 2070-1721 V. Zimmer
Intel
D. Thaler
Microsoft
September 2010
DHCPv6 Options for Network Boot
Abstract
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6) provides a
framework for passing configuration information to nodes on a
network. This document describes new options for DHCPv6 that SHOULD
be used for booting a node from the network.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5970.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Huth, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 5970 DHCPv6 Options for Network Boot September 2010
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Conventions .....................................................3
3. Options .........................................................3
3.1. Boot File Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Option ............3
3.2. Boot File Parameters Option ................................4
3.3. Client System Architecture Type Option .....................5
3.4. Client Network Interface Identifier Option .................6
4. Appearance of the Options .......................................7
5. Download Protocol Considerations ................................7
6. IANA Considerations .............................................7
7. Security Considerations .........................................8
8. Acknowledgements ................................................8
9. References ......................................................9
9.1. Normative References .......................................9
9.2. Informative References .....................................9
1. Introduction
This document describes DHCPv6 options that SHOULD be used to provide
configuration information for a node that must be booted using the
network rather than from local storage.
Network booting is used, for example, in some environments where
administrators have to maintain a large number of nodes. By serving
all boot and configuration files from a central server, the effort
required to maintain these nodes is greatly reduced.
A typical boot file would be, for example, an operating system kernel
or a boot-loader program. To be able to execute such a file, the
firmware running on the client node must perform the following two
steps (see Figure 1): First get all information that is required for
downloading and executing the boot file. Second, download the boot
file and execute it.
+------+
_______________________\| DHCP |
/ 1 Get boot file info /|Server|
+------+ +------+
| Host |
+------+ +------+
\_______________________\| File |
2 Download boot file /|Server|
+------+
Figure 1: Network Boot Sequence
Huth, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 5970 DHCPv6 Options for Network Boot September 2010
The information that is required for booting over the network MUST
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