bob@asylum.sf.ca.us (Bob Weissman) (02/08/89)
I've recently had the opportunity to observe the "plug and play" features of the Sun386i ("Road Runner"). This machine provides a level of automation not found in Sun's Motorola-based machines. For example, once a master YP server has been set up, you can just attach another 386i to the network and it and the server will automagically make themselves known to each other. Apparently, the server assigns IP numbers in sequence from 1 and host names from a list. There are other interesting features such as new users' ability to create accounts for themselves and perform a limited amount of system administration (not requiring root privs). Does anybody know how they do this stuff? I'm particularly interested in the "plug 'n' play" aspects of new network connections. Has anyone at Sun written any papers on the "help me, I'm new here" protocol which must be used by new client 386i's? Thanks, -- Bob Weissman bob@asylum.sf.ca.us or ...!ames!oli-stl!asylum!bob rlw@well.uucp