.info File

AIX Version 4 Files Reference

.info File

Purpose

Stores configuration information used by the Network Install Manager (NIM).

Description

The .info file contains a series of Korn shell variable assignments used by NIM. The .info file is created by NIM for each client. During network boot, the rc.boot program uses several of these variables to control processing.

If a client is initialized by NIM, the .info file is copied into that client's /etc directory as the /etc/niminfo file. The nimclient command uses the /etc/niminfo file to communicate with the NIM master server.

Note: The following variable groups are based upon the function of the variables that they contain. The .info file itself is not divided into categories.

Variables used directly by the rc.boot program

ROUTES	Contains all the routing information the client needs in order to access any allocated NIM resource. This information is presented as a series of space-separated stanzas, each in the following format: DestinationIPAddress:DestinationSubnet :GatewayIPAddress
SPOT	Specifies the location of the shared product object tree (SPOT) to be used during the boot process. This variable contains the host and pathname of the client's SPOT in the following format: HostName:SPOTDirectory
RC_CONFIG	Specifies the file name of the rc.config script to use.
NIM_HOSTS	Provides information used to construct an /etc/hosts file for the client. The value is formatted as follows: IPAddress:HostName IPAddress:HostName ...

Variables used by any rc.config script

ROOT	Specifies the host and path name of the client's root directory in the following format: HostName:RootDirectory
MOUNTS	Contains a series of space-separated stanzas, each composed of a remote directory specification and the point where it should be mounted. The stanzas are in the following format: HostName:RemoteDirectory:LocalDirectory

Variables used by the nim commands

NIM_NAME	Designates the name of the client's NIM machines object.
NIM_CONFIGURATION	Specifies the client's NIM configuration machine type.
NIM_MASTER	Specifies the IP address of the NIM master server.
NIM_MASTER_PORT	Specifies the port number to use for client communications.
NIM_REGISTRATION_PORT	Specifies the port number to use for client registration.
NIM_MAX_RETRIES	Specifies the maximum number of retries for communication attempts with the nimesis daemon.
NIM_MAX_DELAY	Sets the amount of time to wait between retries for communication with the nimesis daemon.

Variables used by BOS Install

The following variables are used by NIM to control Base Operating System (BOS) installation operation:

NIM_BOSINST_DATA	Specifies the RAM file system path name to the bosinst.data file to be used. This variable has the following format: Pathname
NIM_BOS_IMAGE	Specifies the RAM file system path name to the BOS image.
NIM_CUSTOM	Specifies the path name of the customization script to execute after BOS installation.

Variables used by the rc.dd_boot Script

The rc.dd script uses the following variables to perform boot specific processing to create certain NIM resources.

DTLS_PAGING_SIZE	Contains the paging-space size that you specify. If you have not set the paging space, the value is NULL and the rc.dd_boot script defaults to a paging space twice that of the client's RAM space.
DTLS_LOCAL_FS	Contains a list of acronyms specifying the filesystems to be created locally on the client. The possible values are `tmp` and `home`.

Examples

The following is an example of a .info file:

#----------------Network Install 
Manager---------
# warning - this file contains NIM configuration information
#         and should only be updated by NIM
export NIM_NAME=dua
export NIM_CONFIGURATION=standalone
export NIM_MASTER_HOSTNAME=satu
export NIM_MASTER_PORT=1058
export NIM_REGISTRATION_PORT=1059
export RC_CONFIG=rc.bos_inst
export SPOT=tiga:/usr
export NIM_CUSTOM=/tmp/dua.script
export NIM_BOS_IMAGE=/SPOT
export NIM_BOS_FORMAT=master
export NIM_HOSTS=" 130.35.130.1:satu 130.35.130.3:tiga "
export MOUNTS=" tiga:/export/logs/dua:/var/adm/ras:dir
tiga:/export/nim/simages
:/SPOT/usr/sys/inst.images:dir
satu:/export/nim/scripts/dua.script:tmp/dua.script:file "

Related Information

The lsnim command, nim command, nimclient command, nimconfig command, niminit command.