[Userland] [OpenIndiana Distribution - Feature #2877] Use DNS and/or DHCP to point newly installed clients to configuration settings

[illumos project]

Issue #2877 has been updated by Ken Mays.

Assignee set to OI Userland


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Feature #2877: Use DNS and/or DHCP to point newly installed clients to configuration settings
https://www.illumos.org/issues/2877

Author: Jim Klimov
Status: New
Priority: Normal
Assignee: OI Userland
Category: 
Target version: 
Difficulty: Medium
Tags: needs-triage


PREAMBLE
The Sun Ray clients have a nifty feature for detailed configuration after a reboot: they can either get certain settings, i.e. pointers to their firmware and session servers, from a specially configured DHCP server, or they can learn these parameters from DNS using predefined names in their default search domain (then they can contact a firmware server to download an optional configuration file for further details). The latter option allows using any DHCP service, including a dumb access point, and set-up whatever is needed via DNS and at the firmware/config-file server.

RFE
I propose to use similar methodology to auto-configure in a hands-free manner newly deployed networking clients, such as local zones with ip-type=exclusive and interface=...dhcp mode. The "hands-free" part concerns not even embedding an /etc/sysidcfg file onto the installed image before first boot.
This idea could also be expanded to AI or LiveMedia installations, if similar features are not yet in place.

At a minimum, if the newly installed and booted client lacks saved/predefined networking configuration, it should use DHCP to get basic networking settings (see also bug #2875 regarding DHCP-DNS support for local zones) - this does not contradict today's reality in OI because local zones try to use RARP anyway; though perhaps a short DHCP timeout should be used if DHCP was not explicitly requested by the admin (in which case teh default is 300sec).

When the self-configuring client without explicitly configured presets gets its networking settings, it can check the default domain for a certain hostname, and if that is defined (maybe multivalued for failover) - the client can request (over TFTP or HTTP) further configurations, such as a generic or custom sysidcfg file (maybe overriding the networking settings for subsequent boots), or perhaps a list of packages to add/remove (a-la AI manifests), etc. If no configuration arrives this way, it can fall back to the existing wizard-based configuration.

This way a "zoneadm install; zoneadm boot" with no further customization from the host's GZ can lead to a fully prepared customized operating environment, identical twins of which can pop up on different hosts in this domain.


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