IMPORTANT:You must create scCashRegister and its associated objects before you can boot the Point of Service terminals. For more information, see Section 6.4.1, Adding an scCashRegister Object.
Typically, when you boot a Point of Service terminal, it will first try to boot from CD. If a CD is not available, the terminal attempts a network PXE boot. If the network is not available, it then boots from the hard drive. (You can override this order with the BIOS settings.)
The first time you boot the Point of Service terminals, the posleases2ldap daemon automatically triggers posldap2crconfig.pl which then creates a Workstation object (scWorkstation) and hardware configuration files for the Point of Service terminals that register on the Branch Server. For more information on this process, see Section 3.5.3, The hwtype.MAC_address File.
Figure 3-1 provides a simplified overview of the Point of Service boot process for a network PXE boot, a hard disk boot, and a CD boot.
Figure 3-1 Point of Service terminal boot process
Detailed information about each boot process is provided in the following sections:
To boot Point of Service terminals from the network, the following conditions must be met:
For more information on Branch Server configuration, see Setting
Up a Branch Server
in the Novell Linux
Point of Service 9 Installation Guide.
For more information, see Section 6.4, Defining Point of Service Terminal Objects.
For more information, see Section 8.5, Distributing Images .
For more information, see Section 6.5, Managing Image Objects.
If these conditions are met, the Point of Service terminal can successfully boot from the network.
The following is a detailed description of what takes place when a Point of Service terminal boots from the network:
The pxelinux.0 image is the first bootstrap image used to PXE boot the Point of Service terminals.
The linux file is actually the DiskNetboot-version-date.kernel.version-SLRS image, which provides the Linux kernel used to PXE boot the Point of Service terminals.
If no PXE boot is possible, the Point of Service terminal tries to boot via hard disk, if accessible.
The Point of Service hardware manufacturer provides a program to do this. The first time the Point of Service terminal boots, this information is used to register the Point of Service terminal and create the terminal’s config.MAC_address file. This information is also used to determine which configuration files the terminal should use.
The Point of Service hardware manufacturer provides a program to do this.
During this step, a check is first made to determine whether the hostname tftp.\$DOMAIN can be resolved. If not, the DHCP server is used as the TFTP server.
If this is the Point of Service terminal’s first time booting, its config.MAC_address file does not yet exist. The Point of Service terminal must first register on the system.
A new Point of Service terminal registers as follows:
The hwtype.MAC_address file indicates the Point of Service hardware type, the BIOS version, and the Point of Service alias name. The system uses this information to create the terminal’s config.MAC_address file. For more information on this process, see Section 3.5.3, The hwtype.MAC_address File.
For more information about the content and file format of the config.MAC_address file, refer to Section 3.5.1, The config.MAC_address File.
If there is a PART line in the configuration file, a check is made using the image version to see whether any local system needs to be updated.
If there is a SYNC line, the indicated file is downloaded over TFTP.
The only value the file contains is the number of seconds to wait (sleep) before the multicast download of the client image starts. If the file is not present, the boot process immediately proceeds.
If they do not match, the images are re-downloaded.
All the indicated files are loaded from the TFTP server and stored in a /config/ path.
All the required configuration files are now present because they had been stored in the client image or have been downloaded via TFTP.
The file systems that are mounted read-only can be stored in cramfs-compressed RAM file systems to save Point of Service RAM resources.
If you are unable to electronically distribute Point of Service
images over your network, you must manually distribute the images
uses CDBoot images. For more information on creating a CDBoot image,
see Building
a CDBoot Image
Section 10.1, Building a CDBoot
Image.
The behavior of Point of Service terminals booting from CD is similar to Point of Service terminals that receive the first and second stage boot images over the LAN from a Branch Server. The following is a general description of what takes place when a Point of Service terminal boots from CD:
The partition information resides in the config.image file located on the CD.
Depending on the client image that resides on the boot CD (Minimal, Java, Browser, or Desktop), you should note the following restrictions:
NOTE:Keep in mind that onboard VGA reduces the Point of Service terminal’s available RAM.