Ubuntu Manpage: nobodd-tftpd - nobodd-tftpd - serve boot partition files over TFTP

Provided by: nobodd-tftpd_0.4-0ubuntu1_all

NAME

       nobodd-tftpd - nobodd-tftpd - serve boot partition files over TFTP

       A  read-only TFTP server capable of reading FAT boot partitions from within image files or
       devices. Intended to be paired with a block-device  service  (e.g.   NBD)  for  netbooting
       Raspberry Pis.

SYNOPSIS

          usage: nobodd-tftpd [-h] [--version] [--listen ADDR] [--port PORT]
                              [--board SERIAL,FILENAME[,PART[,IP]]]

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              show the help message and exit

       --version
              show program's version number and exit

       --board SERIAL,FILENAME[,PART[,IP]]
              can be specified multiple times to define boards which are to be served boot images
              over TFTP; if PART is omitted the default is 1; if IP is  omitted  the  IP  address
              will not be checked

       --listen ADDR
              the address on which to listen for connections (default: "::" for all addresses)

       --port PORT
              the port on which to listen for connections (default: "tftp" which is port 69)

CONFIGURATION

nobodd-tftpd can be configured via the command line, or from several configuration files.
These are structured as INI-style files with bracketed [sections] containing key=value
lines, and optionally #-prefixed comments. The configuration files which are read, and the
order they are consulted is as follows:

1. /etc/nobodd/nobodd.conf

2. /usr/local/etc/nobodd/nobodd.conf

3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nobodd/nobodd.conf (where $XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config if
unset)

Later files override settings from files earlier in this order.

The configuration file may contain a [tftp] section which may contain the following
values:

listen This is equivalent to the --listen parameter and specifies the address(es) on which
the server will listen for incoming TFTP connections.

port This is equivalent to the --port parameter and specifies the UDP port on which the
server will listen for incoming TFTP connections. Please note that only the initial
TFTP packet will arrive on this port. Each "connection" is allocated its own
ephemeral port <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeral_port> on the server and all
subsequent packets will use this ephemeral port.

includedir
If this is specified, it provides the name of a directory which will be scanned for
files matching the pattern *.conf. Any files found matching will be read as
additional configuration files, in sorted filename order.

For example:

[tftp]
listen = 192.168.0.0/16
port = tftp
includedir = /etc/nobodd/conf.d

For each image the TFTP server is expected to serve to a Raspberry Pi, a [board:SERIAL]
section should be defined. Here, "SERIAL" should be replaced by the serial number of the
Raspberry Pi. The serial number can be found in the output of cat /proc/cpuinfo at
runtime. For example:

$ grep ^Serial /proc/cpuinfo
Serial : 100000001234abcd

If the serial number starts with 10000000 (as in the example above), exclude the initial
one and all leading zeros. So the above Pi has a serial number of 1234abcd (in
hexadecimal). Within the section the following values are valid:

image Specifies the full path to the operating system image to serve to the specified Pi,
presumably prepared with nobodd-prep.

partition
Optionally specifies the number of the boot partition. If this is not specified it
defaults to 1.

ip Optionally limits serving any files from this image unless the IP address of the
client matches. If this is not specified, any IP address may retrieve files from
this share.

For example:

[board:1234abcd]
image = /srv/images/ubuntu-24.04-server.img
partition = 1
ip = 192.168.0.5

In practice, what this means is that requests from a client with the IP address
"192.168.0.5", for files under the path "1234abcd/", will be served from the FAT
file-system on partition 1 of the image stored at /srv/images/ubuntu-24.04-server.img.

Such definitions can be produced by nobodd-prep when it is provided with the nobodd-prep
--serial option.

Boards may also be defined on the command-line with the --board option. These definitions
will augment (and override, where the serial number is identical) those definitions
provided by the configuration files.

SYSTEMD/INETD USAGE

       The  server  may  inherit  its  listening  socket  from a managing process. In the case of
       inetd(8) where the listening socket is traditionally passed as stdin (fd 0), pass  "stdin"
       as  the  value  of  --listen  (or  the  listen  option  within  the  [tftp] section of the
       configuration file).

       In the case of systemd(1), where the listening socket(s) are passed via  the  environment,
       specify "systemd" as the value of --listen (or the listen option within the [tftp] section
       of the configuration file) and the service will expect to find a single socket  passed  in
       LISTEN_FDS.  This  will  happen implicitly if the service is declared as socket-activated.
       However, the service must not use Accept=yes as the TFTP protocol is connection-less.  The
       example  units  provided  in  the source code demonstrate using socket-activation with the
       server.

       In both cases, the service manager sets the port that the service will listen on,  so  the
       --port  option  (and  the  port option in the [tftp] section of the configuration file) is
       silently ignored.

BUGS

       Please report bugs at: https://github.com/waveform80/nobodd/issues

AUTHOR

       Dave Jones

COPYRIGHT

       2023-2024 Dave Jones