At the Circus we have a network management server that runs all of the normal services needed to manage a small network and so I rarely need to fire up the tftp server on my laptop. Today was one of those days I needed a quick tftp server and I spent too much time figuring it out. This is my attempt to remedy that shortcoming.

What is ironic is that after I googled around I found that I had “self documented” in the /private/tftpboot directory, unfortunately I expected the tftp directory for the tftp server to be in /tftpboot. I realize I can just put a symlink from /tftpboot to /private/tfpboot but I learned when working on AIX it is better to understand the file system layout of a UNIX vendor that it is to make it like another OS. It will bite you eventually.

Here is a listing of the /private/tftboot directory, you will notice the very last file is tftp.txt. That is where I told myself how to do this in the past. It also appears most of the IOS images were for the testlab.

asa821-k8.bin
c1841-adventerprisek9-mz.150-1.M.bin
c2500-is-l.123-26.bin
c2600-adventerprisek9-mz.124-25c.bin
c3560e-ipbasek9npe-mz.122-55.SE1.bin
c3620-j1s3-mz.123-26.bin
c3640-a3js-mz.124-25b.bin
c3640.txt
tftp.txt

This is what I had listed in the tftp.txt file. It tells how to start and stop a service in Mac OSX using launchctl.

sudo launchctl load -F /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist
sudo launchctl unload -F /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist

For thoroughness I am including the tftp.plist file below. If I wanted the tftp daemon to start every time I turned on my laptop I would change Disabled to EnableTransactions.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Disabled</key>
	<true/>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.apple.tftpd</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/usr/libexec/tftpd</string>
		<string>-s</string>
		<string>/private/tftpboot</string>
	</array>
	<key>inetdCompatibility</key>
	<dict>
		<key>Wait</key>
		<true/>
	</dict>
	<key>InitGroups</key>
	<true/>
	<key>Sockets</key>
	<dict>
		<key>Listeners</key>
		<dict>
			<key>SockServiceName</key>
			<string>tftp</string>
			<key>SockType</key>
			<string>dgram</string>
		</dict>
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>