Using nubae fatclient [was Re: which release to use?]

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 11:53 AM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> From what I can see, u are very close. The problem u have is that you
>>> have not created the nfs based home dirs to be able to share
>>> /home/username/.
>>>
>>> U should be doing this (taken from my site):
>>>
>>> sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-kernel-server nfs-common
>>> echo "/home 192.168.0.0/24(rw,no_root_squash,async)" | sudo tee -a
>>> /etc/exports /dev/null
>>> sudo exportfs -a
>>>
>>
>> I've done this. I tried it a second time, but got duplicate entries. I
>> fixed those manually. When I sudo exportfs -a I get
>>
>> exportfs: /etc/exports [1]: Neither 'subtree_check' or
>> 'no_subtree_check' specified for export "192.168.0.0/24:/home".
>>  Assuming default behaviour ('no_subtree_check').
>>  NOTE: this default has changed since nfs-utils version 1.0.x
>>
>>
>>> Also, as u correctly guessed, eth1 is normally the internal IP... so
>>> switch those 2 around either in the script, or in the server....
>>
>> I switched these in the script. I'm rebuilding the client. Let's see
>> what happens...
>>
>
> It worked!!!
>
> The NFS part was fine. It was a mixup in the IPs of eth0 and eth1.
> Mine were assigned the other way around. Local mounting of USB drive
> works well too!
>
> I'll report back with more details after palying with a few more
> options in the script.
>
>> Another thing to note is that it takes forever to re-download packages
>> and build images, so I installed apt-cacher and that thing is an
>> absolute boon! Now rebuilding images from scratch are a cinch!
>>
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/BuildLTSPWithAptCacher
>>
>> Sameer
>>>
>>> kind Regards,
>>> David
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:47 PM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Yeah asking on the list is fine... or private to me otherwise... but
>>>> this way others can benefit from the messages too. First... can u tell
>>>> me your infrastructure (server, release, TC details.) I'll take a look
>>>> at the errors u are getting now and post on that soon.
>>>>
>>>> David (nubae)
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 8:33 PM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Well, considering fatclient is not 'officially' supported, bug reports
>>>>>> are a bit irrelevant, though I would welcome any help with getting the
>>>>>> script working under Hardy.  To be honest I haven't looked at the
>>>>>> fatclient script in a while, but I'll set up a test environment with
>>>>>> hardy and go from there. I'll let you know where I get stuck, and if
>>>>>> you can help, that would be much appreciated. Last time I checked, one
>>>>>> couldn't even get to the ldm screen if I remember correctly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> kind Regards,
>>>>>> David Van Assche
>>>>>> www.nubae.com
>>>>>
>>>>> Since the fatclient script from nubae is not officially supported, I'm
>>>>> not sure where I should post questions. I'm going to post them here
>>>>> and hope I can get some answers. I'm trying out the fatclient script
>>>>> from http://www.nubae.com/ltsp-linux-terminal-server-project-netbooted-fat-client-for-ubuntu-hardy-and-intrepid
>>>>> (David's site) and get a bunch of errors. I took a few photos of the
>>>>> thin client when it boots up (I couldn't capture the log on the thin
>>>>> client because the system becomes unusable quickly). Photos are at
>>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/files/ltsp-fatclient-errors.zip
>>>>>
>>>>> My questions:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) When running the script as indicated on the site, I get to a point
>>>>> where it asks for main user with root privileges. I am assuming this
>>>>> is the user on the server who has root privileges via sudo?
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) What went wrong? (see photos at
>>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/files/ltsp-fatclient-errors.zip)
>>>>>
>>>>> Any help would be great. The default thin client works fine, but the
>>>>> server gets overloaded when using multimedia apps, which is what we'll
>>>>> be doing this semester (begins next week). If nothing works, I'll fall
>>>>> back to the default thin client.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sameer
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>>>>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>>>>> San Francisco State University
>>>>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>>>>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>>>>
>

Couple of problems to report.

1) Plugging in a USB key works fine. It automounts and shows up in
Nautilus. It also shows up when I run the 'mount' command. When I
unmount it in Nautilus, the icon still shows on the desktop, but mount
says its unmounted (no listing). Upon doing a second unmount from
Nautilus, it says the device is not mounted. The icon remains on the
desktop.

2) If I log out and then shutdown from gdm, it works fine, but if I
shutdown from within the session directly, it hangs. No keyboard, no
mouse, but the desktop remains on the screen. There is also a telltale
sound from the client which happens when the machine shuts down. Its
almost like the client shut down, but forgot to tell the monitor ;-)

Other than that, it works great. Very impressive indeed!!!

Sameer