Stephen, There's a number of challenges to making this work.
1) The bootrom in the thin client is going to do an Ethernet broadcast looking for a DHCP server. There's no way for the Amazon "cloud" to see that request. You could try a dhcp forwarder, if your router supports that, but the cloud isn't going to be listening for dhcp requests anyway. So, you'll be stuck having to serve dhcp from a local machine. 2) Once the client gets an IP address, it's going to use TFTP to grab a minimal image. The cloud isn't going to be listening for TFTP requests, so you'll strike out there too. Maybe have a local machine to serve up the kernel images via tftp. 3) If you get this far, the kernel and ramfs will need to mount a root filesystem from a server. Either NFS or NBD is what LTSP uses. The cloud isn't going to be offering either of those services. Sounds like a local machine would be needed, to serve up the root filesystem. 4) Ok, so now you've got a linux kernel running and a root filesystem mounted. Next step, LDM gives a login screen. It's actually just a fancy wrapper around SSH. Does the cloud offer SSH login capability? If not, you'll need a local machine that allows you to log in via SSH. 5) Once the SSH login is working, and the user logs in, it's going to look for a desktop environment like Gnome or KDE or XFCE to run. Are those environments going to exist on the cloud? I rather doubt it. Sounds like a local machine will be needed to offer the desktop. In a nutshell, that's how LTSP works. It really requires a local machine, or at least a machine that can offer the services I mentioned above. I suppose it's possible to rig up something where you could run some of those things on a cloud, but in the end, it wouldn't look much like LTSP. Cloud computing is a pretty good idea, but I think it's really intended for web-based applications, not serving operating systems. Jim McQuillan [email protected] Stephen Zvolner wrote: > I would like to run an LTSP server over the Amazon compute cloud. I am > fairly new to > this technology, but what I was wondering is how I would configure the thin > client > machines to boot directly from the Internet, where the LTSP server would > reside. I would have an IP address of > the LTSP server. However, I'm not sure how I would configure the client > machines to connect to the > LTSP server running over the Internet, and not over a local area network. > Normally, the client obtains an IP address > from a DHCP server (standalone or the one bundled with LTSP). As I > understand, this is accomplished > by configuring the BIOS of the client machine to boot from the local area > network. In my case, however, > the thin client must actually go out over the Internet to establish a > connection and begin downloading the client > software. If anyone can give me any guidance or suggestions as to how this > might be accomplished or if this is even feasible. > Thanks you your help. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF.net email is sponsored by: > SourcForge Community > SourceForge wants to tell your story. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword > _____________________________________________________________________ > 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _____________________________________________________________________ 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
