ltsp server cluster setup

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007, Cedric Janssens wrote:

> > 3. Run every client as a diskless workstation (fat client), such that the
> >    programs run on the desktops themselves but all disk storage and
> >    software installation is centralised to one place.
> 
> Is this possible to do this with LTSP ?
> I thought we need RDLB (not sure about the acronym) to do this.
> 
> Don't you know where to find more info ?

Oliver's blog has an entry around LTSP5 Plugins:

http://www.grawert.net/weblog.cgi/2006/10/13/2006-10-13_16:15:10_Writing_LTSP_5_Plugins.html

which links to his howto on writing plugins for ltsp5:

https://wiki.edubuntu.org/HowtoWriteLTSP5Plugins

The example plugin creates an LTSP environment for web kiosks.  The web
kiosks are simple diskless workstations.  I haven't done it, but it seems
to me that [3] above is not a million miles off what that script does.  It
probably is some work, but it's definitely getting close to workable and a
motivated person could almost certainly hack something together.

I guess you need, among other things to:

1. Install edubuntu-desktop into an ltsp chroot
2. Organise /home to be exported and mounted via nfs (preferably with
   kerberos auth).
3. Organise centralised authentication.  NIS? LDAP?
4. Start ordinary gdm session on thin client.
5. Some other stuff?

Not trivial, but not impossible.

Gavin