[K12OSN] DHCP question

[Les Mikesell]

On Fri, 2005-04-01 at 15:26, Steve Kossakoski wrote:
> We're attempting to place a K12LTSP server in a Windows 2000 network
> and continue to use MS for DHCP.  Can we point to eth1 to download a
> kernel to thin clients or should we point to eth0 and disable the
> K12LTSP DHCP daemon?

First, make sure you understand how the stock 2-nic setup works. 
Normally the clients are connected to eth0 and get dhcp service
from the k12ltsp service which is completely isolated and independent
from your main network where you connect eth1.  You can allow
your main dhcp server to provide the address to the eth1 interface
if you want.  The k12ltsp server acts as a NAT router, so even if
you connect windows PCs or dual boot clients on the eth0 side, they
will get a 192.168.0.x address on that local network, but can
communicate though NAT routing of the server and will appear to the
rest of your network as the eth1 IP address of the server.  The only
problem that ever happens in practice is if you accidentally plug the
wrong server nic into the main network and start supplying dhcp answers
that won't work there.  You also have to be careful about this during
major version upgrades because the kernel has changed the order of
card detection and sometimes the eth0/eth1 interfaces end up swapped.

There are a couple of reasons not to use this model - the most basic
is that your network administrator says you can't run another dhcp
server even though it won't interfere when connected correctly.  Another
is that you want a flat network with clients working from anywhere.  In
that case an unrelated dhcp server can be configured with the options
needed by the thin clients.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     les at futuresource.com