3.4 Hardware

Point of Service terminals are implemented in a variety of hardware forms. The primary difference in Point of Service hardware is whether the terminal has an internal hard drive or other persistent media (such as a flash drive), or whether the terminal is diskless. A system that has a hard disk can be configured to store the image on a disk partition instead of a RAM disk so it can boot from the hard disk if it cannot boot over the network.

3.4.1 Hardware Configuration Files

Point of Service terminal hardware configuration information can be stored in LDAP as scConfigFileTemplate objects, or it can be stored on the Administration Server as a file and distributed over RSYNC. Hardware configuration files that are distributed by the Administration Server over RSYNC must be located in the /opt/SLES/POS/rsync/config/ directory and must have a corresponding scConfigFileSyncTemplate object in the LDAP directory.

NOTE:The hardware configuration files discussed in this section should not be confused with config.MAC_Address Point of Service configuration files. The config.MAC_Address files contain the parameters required to configure a Point of Service terminal during a network PXE or hard disk boot. For more information, see Section 3.5.1, The config.MAC_address File.

The scConfigFileTemplate and scConfigFileSyncTemplate objects are located in LDAP under the scPosImage or scCashRegister objects. In addition to providing Point of Service hardware configuration information, they specify which configuration file a Point of Service terminal should download from the Branch Server at boot time. For information on creating these objects in the LDAP directory, see Section 6.4.2, Adding an scConfigFileTemplate Object or Section 6.4.1, Adding an scCashRegister Object

The Branch Server initially acquires the hardware configuration information for its local Point of Service terminals in one of two ways:

  • posldap2crconfig.pl reads the configuration information stored in the scConfigFileTemplate object in LDAP and creates a configuration file in the /tftpboot/CR/MAC_ Address/ directory on the Branch Server. The hardware configuration file is then distributed to the appropriate Point of Service terminal at boot time.
  • posldap2crconfig.pl reads where the configuration file is located in the scConfigFileSyncTemplate object. It then triggers an RSYNC call to download the configuration file from the Administration Server. The configuration file is stored in the /tftpboot/CR/MAC_ Address/ directory on the Branch Server so it can be distributed to the appropriate Point of Service terminal at boot time.

posleases2ldap automatically triggers posldap2crconfig.pl the first time a Point of Service terminal registers with the Branch Server. Consequently, you do not have to do anything to initiate these processes except start the posleases2ldap service on the Branch Server after installation.

However, if the terminal’s hardware configuration information changes after its initial registration, you must manually run either posldap2crconfig.pl --dumpall or posAdmin --updateconfig to update the hardware configuration information on the Branch Server. These commands regenerate the hardware configuration and config.MAC_Address files for all Point of Service terminals found in LDAP.

For more information on the posldap2crconfig.pl script, see Section A.3.5, posldap2crconfig.pl.

For more information on the posAdmin --updateconfig command, see Section 6.9, Updating config.MAC_address and Hardware Configuration Files.

3.4.2 Graphical Display Configuration

The graphics controller depends on the model type, so it can be derived from static tables. Some Point of Service terminals can use multihead X configurations. The corresponding XF86Config files are manufacturer-specific and are not provided as part of the Novell Linux Point of Service software package.