Subject: Thin Servers & Clients
(Was: RE: [Leaf-user] Oxygen + TFTP boot
-&- Re: LRP Print Server & LRP Xterminal)
Hello,
Brett J. Hoffman wants to load his whole firewall OS from a TFTP server.
Dave Hng wants to set up an LRP Xterminal, so he needs to load packs via
TFTP.
I, for some time now, am thinking about something related to those two
ideas, how to set up the following two things:
1. A cluster of specialized servers (1 web server, 1 ssh & scp server, 1
mail and perhaps fax server, 1 printer server, etc.). All of them I want
to be disk-less, except for a disk server which should share its disk
space to the others (when needed for spooling, storage, etc). Even the
disk server I would like to be LEAF (or something similar) based; the OS
would run on RAM, except for the spool data, logs, user data, etc., which
would reside on its hard disk(s).
The whole cluster should be quite fail resistant (we are all
familiar to the advantages of the OS running on RAM and being loaded from
read only media). When one of the boxes should fail, all the other
services will keep alive. Replacement of the broken box would be as easy
as replacing the box, booting the new one with the right floppy and you
are done! (A couple of boxes would be kept as quick replacement onces; and
the broken one could be fixed or substituted if needed without the
pressure of laking a service while its being done.)
There should, for all this, be a LEAF Web server floppy (or
package), a LEAF SSH & SCP floppy (or pack), etc. which would quickly
convert virtually any computer on a unit of a cluster of servers which
could be shared with other users with very few changes (keeping the same
IP addresses for the same service boxes and so...
2. Using a single floppy to boot a Wintel box into Linux and make it a
temporarily Xterminal. The idea is to use a few boxes on a computer
classroom as Xterminal to a main server where all applications
(bioinformatics and Internet, mainly) would run. The reason why I want
them to boot from floppy and leave the hard disks (which they
have) untouched is because those boxes are used under Windows most of the
time, and I want them to boot straight into Windows unless a (LEAF) floppy
is on the floppy drive (when the Xterminal should be set up).
In both cases 1 & 2, I guess the systems could boot from a single floppy
and download other needed packages a la Oxygen from a FTP or Web
server. Although DavidD's instructions say you MUST use two floppies to
boot Oxygen, I guess (hope) one should be enough for my purposes. (I am
not yet familiar with Oxygen, which I want to look in detail at when I
have the time, but I feel itīs the way to go).
As some of you might know, I was very exited about DavidD's
Butterfly, which I though I would wait for to be used for this two
projects. (At the moment, Xterminals are being made by using X servers for
Windows; and services are run by a single box running Debian; so I am not
in a hurry and want to analyze all my options before I decide for one). I
am not waiting for Butterfly anymore and so, I am looking for
alternatives. LEAF is my first beat and I think muLinux is not bad either.
I would like to hear your ideas and criticisms to all this as well
as your advices on how to proceed (or start :) working on those two
lines. Perhaps the first step is to decide whether or not LEAF is my way
to go (which I guess it is).
Thanks a lot,
Angel
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