Diskless

A diskless node loads even its operating system from the network, and a computer terminal has no operating system at all; it is only an input/output interface to the server.

A LAN-based cluster is often called a LAVc, for Local Area Network VMScluster, and allows, among other things, bootstrapping a possibly diskless satellite node over the network using the system disk of a bootnode.

An example of where a handler saved the day was in ISC's diskless workstation support, where a bug in the implementation meant that using named pipes on the workstation could induce undesirable resource locking on the fileserver.

History In 1984, the Reverse Address Resolution Protocol ( RARP ), defined in RFC 903, was introduced to allow simple devices such as diskless workstations to dynamically obtain a suitable IP address.

ISC designed its own GUI -based diskless workstations for use with these file servers, and ported DNIX again.

Sun also marketed a network computer (a term popularized and eventually trademarked by Oracle); the JavaStation was a diskless system designed to run Java applications.