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From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Automatic IP address assignment
Message-ID: <2324@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Mon, 22-Jun-87 18:00:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2324
Posted: Mon Jun 22 18:00:23 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jun-87 07:31:35 EDT
References: <8706121831.AA05760@saturn.mitre.org> <127@eagle_snax.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 39

I think a lot of the discussion on this is not relevant to the original
request.  People are trying to solve the problems that arise when a
host wants to move around to various networks and "plug in" and just
work.  That's not what was asked for, as far as I recall.

The problem is how to take a new machine and get it on the net.  Not
move it around, just get it on the net in ONE place.  This should not
require superusers to mumble incantations to files in obscure places;
it should not require sending email to Jon Postel; ideally you should
plug in e.g. a diskless workstation and it should tell the net it wants
to boot.  If it is an unknown host, some friendly local site can assign
it a temporary internet address (via a name server with online update),
tell it its address, and offer to boot it with an initialization
program.  This program would display a pretty picture on the screen
(Thanks for buying me, see how easy I am to operate!) and ask what
hostname, username, and password you want, and which file server if
there are several.  These would update the appropriate entries in the
name server database, the system would boot, and you'd be up and
running without following 50 pages of detailed directions in an obscure
manual.

The original question from SunEast seemed to be for the PC world,
so you can substitute "dumb host with generic software on a floppy"
for "diskless workstation" if you like.

I have never understood why we on Unix and/or the Internet seem
content to administer things with humans editing ASCII files and then
converting them to database format with little utility programs, while
commercial systems have been able to apply hundreds of transactions a
second to big online databases for many years.

So to get back to [what I think is] the question, are there any defined
protocols for assigning a new Internet address for a new machine ONLINE
and in REAL TIME?  Note that the boot ROMs (running RARP or BOOTP or
whatever) would not do this; the SERVER which is talking to the new
machine would use this protocol to assign the new address.
-- 
{sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hoptoad!gnu	       gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu
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