Installing system software from a remote file: help.

[Mark Rosenstein]

A novice (me) writes:
Does someone have a sufficient set of tests that one can run from
Unix, to see if installing system software from a file on a remote
system will work. For instance: it seems one needs tftp access
to the directory. So I munged in inetd.conf, and then from the machine
I was going to do the installation on, from unix, I could tftp one
of the files in the directory. I haven't figured out how to test
if bootp is working correctly from Unix. I don't know if other 
condtions must be true for this to work, but I know that the
monitor's little message "No server for {the machine with the files}"
is not helping me debug this problem. I have tried n variations
on the 
machine name/internet address/with-a-following-slash/without-a-following-slash
etc.

other possibly confounding info:
The machine with the files is a 340 which I put the installation and
maintance files on using distcp, the machine I want to install stuff
on are 4D/25s. I tried using the tape drive on the 340 instead of
the files (adding /dev/tape and /dev/nrtape to inetd.conf) and got
the same message.

Any help, especially hints on how to systematically debug this would 
make my New Year. I feel like Jacob Marley dragging the bleepin'
tape drive from machine to machine. The reason I'd like to do this
from Unix is that this problem could be something trivial or subtle
and the monitor is just not the place.

Thanks.

Mark Rosenstein