[K12OSN] Re: Making donations work better

[Terrell Prude', Jr.]

Les Mikesell wrote:

>>Then 
>>she's got to do a remaster of the ISO image.
>>    
>>
>
>I think you've missed an important point of free
>software.  If one person does the remaster and is
>willing to share it, everyone else can move on to
>the next step.  There may or may not be a bootable
>CD with knoppix-style hardware detection that
>does an xdm remote login automatically today
>but someone could easily make one and make it as
>easy to get as k12ltsp.  Likewise since knoppix
>itself can network boot clients that get the same
>hardware detect capability, it should only take a
>little more effort to build that into the server,
>at least for pxe clients where you don't have to
>detect the NIC type first.  If these projects aren't
>already underway, maybe someone could dig up some
>grant money to start them.
>  
>

On the contrary; I'd love to see someone make it (I just don't have time 
right now--I still need to make time to do K12LTSP on YDL!!).  However, 
there is an issue we need to consider with such a remaster.  Not 
everybody's going to be using 192.168.0.254 on their server--me, for 
instance.  Due to the pre-existence of a DHCP server, and our 
unwillingness to allow additional DHCP servers on our network for any 
reason, I've got to use the pre-existing IP address scheme for the 
clients.  That means a single-NIC K12LTSP install, and I'd wager I'm not 
the only one in that situation.  In the case of our district, we run 
subnets of 10.0.0.0/9, giving /20's to all of our schools.  The side 
benefit of this single-NIC install is that the hard disk can also be 
used as a regular file server very easily by the entire school.

HOWEVER....

The applicable effect, when remastering something like Knoppix or Damn 
Small, is that we no longer have a thin client that netboots, thus no 
longer getting its nfs and tftp parameters from a central, 
easy-to-modify DHCP server.  Now that IP address (or "those IP 
addresses" if you get fancy) are hard-coded into the ISO image.  Aunt 
Tilly will, thus, have to have multiple ISO images for each of her 
schools, unless we can somehow safely issue a broadcast query for XDM 
servers, which I'd think would solve that issue.  However, if you've got 
more than one K12LTSP server on the same IP subnet, then you've got to 
make sure you "broadcast" to the right one, so we're back at Square 1.  
Putting each K12LTSP server on its own Layer 3 VLAN would fix that, but 
you've got to have the gear to support that.

Does anyone have any ideas for how to get around this?

--TP