/private/tftpboot

On an initial cursory poll of fifteenish nearby Macs that have never netbooted, I couldn't find one without that directory, so I'd say you merely got some bad information. In every case it was empty, though I frankly don't know if that matters.

I'm with Joel.

The directory exists on every machine. That doesn't mean to say it's used.

In fact I would go as far as to say it is incorrect to say it should only exist on computers that actively use NetBoot. This statement is flat-out wrong. It will be used on any machine acting as a TFTP server (there are many uses for TFTP beyond NetBoot). Since TFTP is a standard server available (although disabled) by default on every Mac system it stands to reason the directory should exist, even if you're not using it.

As such, its presence isn't anything to worry about.

The /private/tftp directory is put there by the BSD package, when it is installed.

lsbom -ldf -p MUGSTf /Library/Receipts/BSD.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom | grep tftp
drwxr-xr-x root wheel ./private/tftpboot
drwxr-xr-x root wheel ./private/tftpboot/private
lrwxr-xr-x root wheel 1 Tue Feb 14 21:32:31 2006 ./private/tftpboot/private/tftpboot

Message was edited by: Nils C. Anderson

/private/tftpboot is used by the TFTP (Trivial FTP) server. The BSD package includes the server, so it also creates the directory. By default the server is not active when you start your computer; you have to mess with xinetd to get it to run.

TFTP clients don't need the directory.

Worth noting that if you need to get a TFTP server going on your Mac (for example, for uploading/downloading configurations or IOS images to Cisco routers or switches), there's a freeware utility called [TFTPServer|http://ww2.unime.it/flr/tftpserver> that makes management of the server a breeze.