Network Block Devices » DNBD2

Development of a Distributed Network Block Device for Unicast Networks¶

by Vito Di Leo Gremmelspacher

Diskless clients are computers that do not have an operating system installed
locally on a hard-disk but rather import it from a server through the network.
Efficiently providing diskless clients with an operating system is crucial to the
overall performance and scalability of networks containing many such clients.
The Distributed Network Block Device (DNBD) is a solution for this task
under multicast networks, specially in wireless environments. In this thesis
we develop, based on DNBD, another network block device for GNU/Linux
operating systems suited for unicast networks. The result should ideally
provide a simple, robust, scalable and high-performance infrastructure to
deliver operating systems to many diskless clients on big networks such as
found on universities.