Tonight I’ve upgraded the operating system and ASDM image on my ASA5505 firewall.  The toughest part always seems to be putting the files in the right place, and controlling the tftp daemon on my laptop.  So here is a post with the critical information.

First, the default location for tftp server activity on OSX is /private/tftpboot.  Files in this location must be world-writeable in order for the daemon to write to them, so a chmod may be necessary if you are backing up configurations.  Reading files should require no modification.

Second, the configuration file for the tftp daemon is /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist.  This is where you can define a different location for the server activity or add other command line parameters to the daemon.

Next we should start the daemon.  This is best done using the following command:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist

Ensure that the firewall is either disabled or allowing inbound tftp connections (udp/69) or things get messy.

When finished with the work it is a good idea to stop the daemon.  tftp isn’t known for being a well secured service!  Shut it down with this command:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tftp.plist

And there we go, a functional tftp server on OSX.