I have long suspected the following to be true and now I have irrefutable proof. The problem is that after a thin client has issued a dhcp request, the kernel is being down loaded by a server different to the one that which the machine finally connects to.
We have four servers running ltsp 3 (these have been there for a year or so) and I have recently installed a new one running ltsp 4. The ltsp 3 servers supply kernel 2.4.19-ltsp-1 to the thin clients and the ltsp4 machine supplies 2.4.24-ltsp-1. Sometimes, if you
access a shell on a machine that is connected to the ltsp 4 machine, and do a uname -a, you can clearly see the "19" kernel rather than the expectd "24".
There is a side issue too whereby some thin clients that connect to the ltsp 4 sever experience X crashes, or more precisely X does not come up at all. It could be that the "19" kernel has different video drivers than the "24" kernel. Until I can get consistent kernels running on the thin clients that connect to a server, that is the machine which supplies the kernel is same one that the client connects to, I cannot resolve the X issue.
Has anyone experienced problems running an LTSP environment with mixed releases of LTSP? I suspect the problems will go away when all the servers have been upgraded to LTSP 4, but I am not in a position to be able to take all the servers down to upgrade each them en masse. I must keep IT facilities available to the users and the only method that I can achieve this is to upgrade the servers one at a time, that is the mixed version environment must be made to work.
Unfortunately the boot messages on a thin client scroll far to fast to read. Is there some method by which I can capture the boot messages for a thin client (eg via syslogd) so that I can post up a specific example? Most of the time, this issue does not cause a problem. If the kernel is loaded from server 10.121.128.8 (as seen in the client boot messages) and then the root file system is mounted from (10.121.128.3) the server to which this client connects, then there will be no problem provided both of these servers are LTSP3, but if the second of these machines is LTSP4, then X will crash. I have yet to observe a situation whereby the kernel is supplied by LTSP4 and the client connects to LTSP3 but my gut feeling is that this will be OK.
Any advice would be must appreciated. Regards Martin Regards Martin Woolley ICT Support Handsworth Grammar School Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inanna
*************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential
and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The views expressed within this email are those of the individual, and not necessarily those of the organisation
*************************************************************
------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the new InstallShield X.
From Windows to Linux, servers to mobile, InstallShield X is the one
installation-authoring solution that does it all. Learn more and evaluate today! http://www.installshield.com/Dev2Dev/0504 _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
