ULTRIX Diskless Mangement Services

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ULTRIX Diskless Management Services (DMS) are provided by the dms utility.

The dms utility enables you to set up a server for diskless clients.

DMS servers provide software that client systems, which may not have disks, can access across the network.

The diskless clients share file systems in a diskless environment set up on the server.

None of the software is transferred from the server to the client; it remains on the server.

Any supported processor type can be a DMS server, but only the processors from the Micro VAX and VAXstation families can be DMS clients.

DMS is useful for those client systems that do not have their own system disks.

It is also useful for those clients who want to use more ULTRIX software than their disk space can accommodate.

Another feature of DMS is that one client can have access to more than one diskless environment.

The dms utility helps you accomplish the following tasks on the DMS server:

  • Partition a disk and create the necessary file systems
  • Install the shared software subsets from the distribution medium
  • Establish a series of defaults that each client can use
  • Register the clients to access the software on the DMS server

DMS was introduced with ULTRIX V2.2.

See Installing and Configuring an ULTRIX V3.0 DMS Server on a SIMH MicroVAX 3900 for an example.