While upgrading the firmware on several network devices this past weekend, I needed to bring up a tftp server so the clients could retrieve the firmware image. I had a Fedora host readily available, so getting tftp up and working was super easy. Before configuring the server, I ran yum to install the tftp-server package:
$ yum install tftp-server
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package tftp-server.x86_64 0:0.49-3.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: xinetd for package: tftp-server-0.49-3.fc11.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package xinetd.x86_64 2:2.3.14-22.fc11 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
........
Once the package was installed, I set “disable” to no in /etc/xinetd.d/tftp (I also disabled the server as soon as I was done using it):
$ cat /etc/xinetd.d/tftp
service tftp
{
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -s /var/lib/tftpboot
disable = no
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}
After the server was configured, I restarted xinetd and everything worked like a champ. If you encounter any issues tftp’ing files, there are a couple of things you can do to troubleshoot the source of the problem:
While tftp is completely insecure, it’s still one of those protocols that we have to live with.