On Wed, 2009-05-13 at 01:58 +0200, Raph wrote: > There are 20 computers (2x1.6 Ghz, 1GB RAM, 160GB sata) > and 1 more (outside the room) with the same hardware > (so no real "server"). The whole is connected > with 10/100 ethernet.
This sounds quite ok. The question is, what will you use the systems for? Because if you do no video, sound or picture editing on a larger scale, not movie or music sharing, then you don't need that much storage. > - Each client (one of the 20 computers) runs a MBD daemon > which shares its HD to the server (the 21st) over the > ethernet. > - The "server" handle the 3.2TB in a volume group and > create the logical volumes with LVM > - The "server" also run a NFS daemon > - Then each client can grab it's data through NFS. > - happiness ... ? I'd say no. The setup sounds very very complicated and error-prone. Before doing this I'd get rid of 1-3 Workstations and put those 1-3 harddisks in the Server to have more storage. > - each client need some private HD space to, at least, > boot enough to let the NBD daemon start. A Gentoo installation is usually between 10 and 20 GB for me, I think. You can also boot over ethernet. > - $10 question : if 20 users login, will the ethernet > be fast enough to support the load ? Most liekly yes. Maybe it's a little slower, but it will work. Here is what I'd do: 1) Make normal Gentoo installations on the Workstations. You can most likely install 1 machine, put the image on the server and copy it everywhere from there. IP and hostname can be managed by DHCP. 2) Use a NFS shared directory for portage tree and binpackages (for updating, installing new software). 3) Install the Server. I would recommend using a softraid and therefore taking the disk from 1-3 Workstations. Then you have 160-320 GB disk space (RAID1 with 2, RAID5 with 3, RAID6 with 4 disks). For a Server 10 GB for / are enough, make it a little bigger, add some space for the portage tree and the binpackages, and you have 120-280 GB for /home, which is really a lot. This shoulc all be a quite stable setup. Now, if you really need much more disk space, you can do the nbd/nfs approach (or do it completely distributed with a Cluster Filesystem and Cluster LVM, but that might be more work). Often people need some local disk space and only need it for 1 "session", therefore mount a big partition somewhere (/tmp maybe) and run tmpwatch regularly. Maybe create a script that automatically creates /tmp/home/$user for all available accounts. Maybe symlink it to /home/$user/tmp or something. Philipp
