Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: On 10/23/05, Matthew Weigel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, except that hard links are filesystem specific, you can't cross filesystem boundaries with one. Also, depending on design, you probably actually want a single RO filesystem to serve as / for all diskless clients, and have smaller per-client RW volumes (like /etc) or per-user RW volumes (so each machine is identical and everyone can use each machine). uhm, so it would be possible sharing all dirs except /etc? That's not what I said, no. Having clarified that point, I don't think I need to respond to what you wrote below where you presumed to know my answer to that question. Each machine is identical? In terms of FS layout, what software is available where, etc.- yes. It's one approach for some problems - depending on design, like I said. yes maybe in that case that would work. But where I'm going to use my doc is a uni env where all the clients are not identical. Even if they were, what would you do if hw failed on one of clients? I'm having a bit of trouble imagining what hardware failures could be handled by a change to filesystem layout. Regardless, I'll note that I was responding to the proposition that *everything*, from / on down, could be shared from one NFS export. In the cases where *that* seems like a good idea, what I describe is better. If sharing that much doesn't, then what I describe may not, either. So a script that sync one of the clients from server, and then all the other clients can sync from that up2date client. Are we still talking about diskless clients? Why on earth would you synchronize them over the network, so that they have to perform NFS reads and writes to effect the changes? Remeber that if the purpose is 'personal' thin clients you would confuse ppl saving tons of files in everyones /home. I confess to being confused by what you're saying here. -- Matthew Weigel hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: So a script that sync one of the clients from server, and then all the other clients can sync from that up2date client. Are we still talking about diskless clients? Why on earth would you synchronize them over the network, so that they have to perform NFS reads and writes to effect the changes? yes, the whole doc is about diskless clients. when having a diskless environment one need to keep all account related stuff synced, that includes passwords group etc.. Yes, but why would you sync files from the clients, with all the network traffic that entails, rather than running it locally on the server? If accounts are to be synchronized, why wouldn't you use something like yp, LDAP, etc. to share accounts rather than transmit master.passwd files over the network? other things that need to he synced in such env is time. Yes, but that doesn't require separate per-client files. My point is that for a lot of situations where diskless clients come up as a potential solution, a single RO filesystem can reasonably be shared across clients for most things. -- Matthew Weigel hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: First, please keep this off the ML since it's not of relevance to get public. Actually, I'm discussing what came up on the mailing list, rather than your document proper. My messages, if you'll recall, were directed towards someone else's comments. I'm very grateful that you care actually. So please can you tell me exactly what you would like changed on the current doc. Explain with details so I can follow and try to understand everything. I'll try to send you comments later tonight or tomorrow; I'm very busy and my Internet access is limited right now, though. -- Matthew Weigel hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On 10/23/05, Matthew Weigel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, except that hard links are filesystem specific, you can't cross filesystem boundaries with one. Also, depending on design, you probably actually want a single RO filesystem to serve as / for all diskless clients, and have smaller per-client RW volumes (like /etc) or per-user RW volumes (so each machine is identical and everyone can use each machine). uhm, so it would be possible sharing all dirs except /etc? what happens to /dev when a few clients want to access the same device? Each machine is identical? yes maybe in that case that would work. But where I'm going to use my doc is a uni env where all the clients are not identical. Even if they were, what would you do if hw failed on one of clients? And about keeping them synced, master.passwd is the most important thing for keeping the 'accounts' intact. So a script that sync one of the clients from server, and then all the other clients can sync from that up2date client. I would say next to master.passwd the important thing that should be synced is /usr which already in my case is mounted. Remeber that if the purpose is 'personal' thin clients you would confuse ppl saving tons of files in everyones /home. /bkw
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On 10/23/05, Bachman Kharazmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And about keeping them synced, master.passwd is the most important thing for keeping the 'accounts' intact. You may want to look into the yp(8) subsystem. For the enviroment you describe, this may be what you're looking for to keep many clients in sync when it comes to their password, group and host files. Cheers, Rogier -- If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
** Reply to message from Bachman Kharazmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:44:13 +0200 Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). I do _not_ want to discourage anyone from creating new, useful documents, but why should decreased accessibility due to choosing a format that's not appropriate for general use on the web be treated differently from any other defect? If you're writing this purely for your own amusement, use any format you like -- but if you want _other_ people to read it on the web, you'll get better results if you provide it in pure standards-conforming HTML+CSS (since that's the form which is most likely to be convenient -- and least likely to cause problems -- for anyone trying to read it). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. You _are_ getting feedback on the document: it's harder to read than it could be. Dave -- Dave Anderson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. I understand your frustation that your thread has been hijacked. If your computer can't run any pdf reader that's your problem. So please stop asking if I can make any HTML or other formats. There are several pdf readers in the ports tree, for those that is interested. Others have given comments to your document, so here is a little nitpick: You may use mkdir with -p option to create intermediate directories instead of creating each and everyone of them explicitely. /Sigfred
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On 10/23/05, Sigfred Heversen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bachman Kharazmi wrote: Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. I understand your frustation that your thread has been hijacked. If your computer can't run any pdf reader that's your problem. So please stop asking if I can make any HTML or other formats. There are several pdf readers in the ports tree, for those that is interested. Others have given comments to your document, so here is a little nitpick: You may use mkdir with -p option to create intermediate directories instead of creating each and everyone of them explicitely. The doc is updated. Thanks alot. /bkw
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: http://bkw.lindesign.se/tmp/diskless.pdf Please read my step-by-step tutorial and give me feedback. I would have pulled it up and read it right away, but it's in pdf format. Yes, I can read them, but it's enough of a pain to make it not worth it for me unless I *know* I want to read it. If you're really interested in sharing information on the internet, you might want to author at a higher level and produce pdf + html + text. If I'd read some html and wanted a nice hardcopy I'd definitely go for a pdf if available. -- Darrin Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stilyagin.com/
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: On 10/22/05, Darrin Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bachman Kharazmi wrote: http://bkw.lindesign.se/tmp/diskless.pdf Please read my step-by-step tutorial and give me feedback. I would have pulled it up and read it right away, but it's in pdf format. Yes, I can read them, but it's enough of a pain to make it not worth it for me unless I *know* I want to read it. If you're really interested in sharing information on the internet, you might want to author at a higher level and produce pdf + html + text. If I'd read some html and wanted a nice hardcopy I'd definitely go for a pdf if available. Do not feel foced reading my doc. PDF is a portable document format widely used and accepted on the inet. Of course it would be good publishing it using latex that can convert to various formats. but this aint any essay and I don't have time/care about getting it in latex atm. If you now can read pdfs why are you complaining about that it isn't worth reading it? And I've emailed faq@ requesting a link to it from the main FAQ at openbsd.org. /bkw -- Darrin Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stilyagin.com/ You need to keep in mind - there are those on this list that are not happy unless they are bitching about someone / something / anything. With that in mind - Bypass these dults and keep contributing. We're happy you are. -- Best regards, Chris Hindsight is an exact science.
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: Do not feel foced reading my doc. PDF is a portable document format widely used and accepted on the inet. Of course it would be good publishing it using latex that can convert to various formats. but this aint any essay and I don't have time/care about getting it in latex atm. If you now can read pdfs why are you complaining about that it isn't worth reading it? And I've emailed faq@ requesting a link to it from the main FAQ at openbsd.org. /bkw I do not feel forced. But as I said, I would have read it immediately had it been in a more accessable format. Reading a PDF file forces me to use programs with cumbersome interfaces. I may end up reading your document. It does sound interesting and worthwhile. But if I do I'll be cursing PDF the whole time. Many people think PDF is nifty and cool and don't mind it a bit, but others don't like the additional hassle required. But I've never seen anyone complain about finding HTML when they follow a link. I'm not saying what you're doing is bad or wrong, but that it makes it less accessible. I'm sure that's not your goal, since you've taken the time and effort to put this together and share it. -- Darrin Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stilyagin.com/
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On Sat, Oct 22, 2005 at 09:05:25PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But I see no difference to simple ASCII-Textfiles anymore (wich are another std. imho). So just use ASCII.
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On 2005/10/22 21:05:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But I see no difference to simple ASCII-Textfiles anymore Ahh, do you know of a nice simple console-mode pdf viewer then?
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. If your computer can't run any pdf reader that's your problem. So please stop asking if I can make any HTML or other formats. |ber und aus /bkw On 10/22/05, Bachman Kharazmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://bkw.lindesign.se/tmp/diskless.pdf Please read my step-by-step tutorial and give me feedback. I really hope it will be useful to the OpenBSD community, for those who want to setup a diskless environment. There are still some shaping left but the basics should be ready by now. /bkw -- ## BKW - Bachman Kharazmi bahkha AT gmail DOT com uin: #24089491 SWEDEN ##
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
1 - Perhaps it is better to produce the document in a standard format in order to get feedback from the greatest number of people (not a flame, just a suggestion). I recommend you convert it to plain ASCII when you get the chance, should be a fairly simple copy and paste job and then add section numbers etc 2 - About the document content itself: I had a brief read over it, what I found missing was using seperate filesystems for each client. Ideally, you'd have a seperate subdirectory on your diskless server for the root of each client, and possibly do a hardlink to /bin etc to avoid redundancy. I would recommend the following structure: /usr/local/diskless/clienta /usr/local/diskless/clientb etc etc /usr/local/diskless/clienta/bin -- /bin /usr/local/diskless/clienta/usr/bin - /usr/bin you get the idea On Saturday 22 October 2005 10:44 pm, Bachman Kharazmi wrote: Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. If your computer can't run any pdf reader that's your problem. So please stop asking if I can make any HTML or other formats. |ber und aus /bkw On 10/22/05, Bachman Kharazmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://bkw.lindesign.se/tmp/diskless.pdf Please read my step-by-step tutorial and give me feedback. I really hope it will be useful to the OpenBSD community, for those who want to setup a diskless environment. There are still some shaping left but the basics should be ready by now. /bkw -- ## BKW - Bachman Kharazmi bahkha AT gmail DOT com uin: #24089491 SWEDEN ##
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Bachman Kharazmi wrote: Please STOP the discussion about document formats in this thread. You're taking my time complaing on the document format (pdf). In my first post I wrote that I want feedback on the document and nothing else. If your computer can't run any pdf reader that's your problem. So please stop asking if I can make any HTML or other formats. |ber und aus /bkw On 10/22/05, Bachman Kharazmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://bkw.lindesign.se/tmp/diskless.pdf Please read my step-by-step tutorial and give me feedback. I really hope it will be useful to the OpenBSD community, for those who want to setup a diskless environment. There are still some shaping left but the basics should be ready by now. /bkw -- ## BKW - Bachman Kharazmi bahkha AT gmail DOT com uin: #24089491 SWEDEN ## I have read your tutorial, and I think it's well written, concise, and should be quite useful. It's always nice to see easy to read step-by-step instructions like this. I have some boxes with net boot capability and I might give it a try. If I do, and I run into any problems with your instructions I'll send you a note. Regards, Darrin Chandler -- Darrin Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.stilyagin.com/
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On Sat, Oct 22, 2005 at 10:13:06PM +0100, Stuart Henderson wrote: On 2005/10/22 21:05:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But I see no difference to simple ASCII-Textfiles anymore Ahh, do you know of a nice simple console-mode pdf viewer then? try pdftotext, it's in the xpdf package. Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
On 10/23/05, Gareth Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1 - Perhaps it is better to produce the document in a standard format in order to get feedback from the greatest number of people (not a flame, just a suggestion). I recommend you convert it to plain ASCII when you get the chance, should be a fairly simple copy and paste job and then add section numbers etc ... 2 - About the document content itself: I had a brief read over it, what I found missing was using seperate filesystems for each client. Ideally, you'd have a seperate subdirectory on your diskless server for the root of each client, and possibly do a hardlink to /bin etc to avoid redundancy. I would recommend the following structure: /usr/local/diskless/clienta /usr/local/diskless/clientb etc etc /usr/local/diskless/clienta/bin -- /bin /usr/local/diskless/clienta/usr/bin - /usr/bin you get the idea yes I do. The whole root for every client vill be approx 50Mb so there's no need to mount /bin also. But sure, it's possible. You know where stuff will be placed if I install _any_ pkg on the server... /bkw
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
Gareth Nelson wrote: 2 - About the document content itself: I had a brief read over it, what I found missing was using seperate filesystems for each client. Ideally, you'd have a seperate subdirectory on your diskless server for the root of each client, and possibly do a hardlink to /bin etc to avoid redundancy. Well, except that hard links are filesystem specific, you can't cross filesystem boundaries with one. Also, depending on design, you probably actually want a single RO filesystem to serve as / for all diskless clients, and have smaller per-client RW volumes (like /etc) or per-user RW volumes (so each machine is identical and everyone can use each machine). -- Matthew Weigel hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: DISKLESS tutorial that need feedback
To be honest, i've never used hardlinks/symlinks with NFS, so I wasn't aware this was a problem (I have used mount_nullfs on FreeBSD, and was thinking about this at the time I posted). The idea of having a seperate RW filesystem for each client as opposed to having several with the full root probably solves this in a much more elegant way. Export /usr, /bin etc as RO and /home, /etc and others as RW. On Sunday 23 October 2005 12:27 am, Matthew Weigel wrote: Gareth Nelson wrote: 2 - About the document content itself: I had a brief read over it, what I found missing was using seperate filesystems for each client. Ideally, you'd have a seperate subdirectory on your diskless server for the root of each client, and possibly do a hardlink to /bin etc to avoid redundancy. Well, except that hard links are filesystem specific, you can't cross filesystem boundaries with one. Also, depending on design, you probably actually want a single RO filesystem to serve as / for all diskless clients, and have smaller per-client RW volumes (like /etc) or per-user RW volumes (so each machine is identical and everyone can use each machine).
