On 11/02/14 01:01 PM, Roswyne wrote:
On the other hand, this sort of machine booting from the network might
be perfect for the SkSp classroom. It's almost silly to be setting up
multiple stand-alone machines for classes, for example.
Mark - if you're interested in setting up my driveless laptop to boot
from the SkSp network for lab use, I'd be happy to donate it for that!
Our programming class is now down to only two folks using desktops and
you're one of them Sui. We have a Winterm RDP graphical terminal (thin
client) at the space if you want to use that to connect to the VM server
where I have xrdp set up under the host OS (Debian 6.0) and an Ubuntu
12.04 guest. Less hauling and hookup them me hauling and hooking up a PC
and monitor for you. Java works just the same.
It turns out that my scale-up plan if many "desks" were called for would
have been to put a call out for laptops to use as graphical terminals.
So, was already thinking this way, just wasn't required in the end.
Though prior to begging, I would have used two of my laptops, the
Winterm RDP client mentioned above, and that networking sniffing laptop
of Alex's.
Using the 8 total working desks at Skullspace + those 4 thin clients
would have got me to *12* without even a callout!
Now, even though I would go the graphical terminal ("thin client")
route, I would not have done diskless net-booting. This requires control
over the DHCP server, and I know Colin would not want us imperiling
everyone else over that.
(though, I still believe there is a way we can have VLANs at Skullspace
for this kind of thing without ever causing core outages)
To avoid going there my approach would be to use iPXE (http://ipxe.org/)
-- either on hard drives that are present or external media (USB sticks, CD)
Was playing with this quite a bit back at Skullspace 1.0.... some of the
desks already have an iPXE boot option that pulls further boot
instructions from a service I set up on the VM server. (thus, installing
this on this is a one time thing) And I was doing iSCSI stuff as well...
Left over wiki dreams:
http://wiki.skullspace.ca/Personal_workstation_service
(Sidenote: One of the bootable options I was playing with was
http://www.thinstation.org/
I also have LTSP experience, what's nice about thinstation is that you
can use it to make do RDP to Windows machines.)
Now, for this particular class Sara is teaching, telling folks they have
to use GNU/Linux as a scale-up requirement makes sense, because we're
working with just text editor and Java.
But, hypothetically, if anyone ever wanted to do a large class where
Windows was a necessity, and wanted the software and hardware scale-up
advantages of graphical thin clients, there is an impediment to consider:
Almost all editions of Windows are crippled to only allow one user
account to log in at a time. You have to get "Windows Server" to have a
true multi-user at a time.
It would suck if someone used the VM server as follows -- install one
crippled Windows guest and then cloned it again and again... because
each guest OS instance takes up dedicated RAM. Would. Not. Scale.
As much as I have no love for proprietary software, it would be a nice
gift to the Skullspace if a legit Windows Server license and install
media were donated so that we could have one Windows Server guest VM run
multiple users.
Would also need a volunteer admin to take care of it. (not me.)
Not only a nice thing to have on hand for hypothetical classroom
scale-up (which requires a well organized and promoted class with enough
students needing lab equipment and not bringing a portable prior to the
geekery of setting this all up being a requirement), but also a nice fit
with my vision for the VMServer
http://wiki.skullspace.ca/Vmsrv
as not just a place to run "servers", but also our most powerful shared
machine available for serious interactive hacking on.
As a note on this, remote RDP performance over our net connection is
pretty good. Thanks VOI!
Mark
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