5.8. Client startup
After you successfully created the host profile at the server, the client will load the boot strap from the server.
5.8.1. Booting with Etherboot and PXE
If you are using PXE boot rom, your client will see a boot menu if the PXE boot works correctly. If you are
using Etherboot, you will see the boot menu immediately. In the boot menu, there are two choices. First is
booting Aptus, second is boot local. You can press [L] to boot back to your local media for dual booting.
If you leave your keyboard untouch, the default selection is Aptus which has a timeout of 3 seconds. You will then
start loading up the Linux kernel and booting Linux .
5.8.2. First time configuration
For the first time startup, the client will startup a fresh clean copy of the Linux operating systems.
Therefore, hardware detection utilities will prompt you for configuration of hardware because of new
hardware detection. Note for network adapter configurations, since all the network configuration are
already configured by Aptus Configurator so you don't have to enter new settings or configure network
manually. When the hardware detection program ask for migrating existing configurations you should say yes.
5.8.3. Other configurations
Since all files are being shared including configuration files. That means all other
configurations of the Linux OS have the same configuration as the server, except for network configurations
and hardware configurations. If you want to customize your client configuration, you can login as root at the
client and do the configuration at the client console or by default, each client will start a copy of Webmin
server, you can configure your client by connecting to your client's Webmin server. You can run your favorite
configuration tools like "Xconfigurator" to configure XFree86 on your Redhat Linux, or "Xdrake" on your
Mandrake Linux . Most of the tools will work as usual. You can also edit configuration files as it was a
normal Linux machine. Files located in the root file system "/" that are modified at the client will take
affect on that client only. Modified configurations will be persistently stored at the server in
/var/opt/aptus/mygroup/hosts/myhost which is the host profile directory.
