aTFTP

atftp is a client/server implementation of the TFTP protocol that implements RFCs 1350, 2090, 2347, 2348, 2349 and 7440. The server is multi-threaded and the client presents a friendly interface using libreadline.

atftp stands for Advanced Trivial File Transfer Protocol. It is called "advanced", by contrast to others TFTP servers, for two reasons. Firstly, it is intended to be fully compliant with all related RFCs. This include RFC1350, RFC2090, RFC2347, RFC2348 and RFC2349. To my knowledge, there is no TFTP server currently available in the public domain that fulfills this requirement. Secondly, atftp is intended for serving boot files to large clusters. It is multi-threaded and support multicast (RFC2090 and PXE), allowing faster boot of hundreds of machine simultaneously.

I started writing the atftp server after trying to boot Debian from the LAN using pxelinux (distributed with syslinux). Since pxelinux needs support for the "tsize" option defined in RFC2349, I looked for different TFTP servers but found none that fulfilled my needs.

With atftp, I have successfully used pxelinux and dhcpd to boot from the LAN. Unfortunately, new development will slow down since I do it on my spare time and atftp now does what I need. However, atftp is actively maintained. Comments, bug reports and patches are welcome.