[K12OSN] LTSP clients accessing home folders on OS X Server

[Christopher Butler]

For starters, I'm being a bit lazy - I haven't searched the archives
because I'm not sure what I should be searching for!

Here's what we currently have for our K12LTSP setup --
1 big honking server with 2 NICs, 1 NIC connects to our LAN, the second
connects to a private VLAN with the LTSP clients.  The LTSP server runs
it's own DHCP server for the LTSP clients (as well as DNS).  We have 5
workstations in the LTSP zone - each has an associated user account and
they are used as card catalog kiosks and web browser kiosks around the
library.  Limited I know, but it works like a charm and other than the
expense for the server, it hasn't cost me a penny.

Here's what else we have --
1 big honking XServe with an attached XRAID running OS X 10.3, Open
Directory, home directories for 400 users, supporting 200 Macs, using MCX,
all sitting on our LAN.  All works like a charm.  I have a separate Fedora
box running BIND & DHCP for the LAN (the LTSP server is one of my slave
DNS servers).

Here's what I want to do --
I've got 24 Bondi iMacs that have been siting in the basement for a year,
and know the K12LTSP supports Bondi clients, I want to put them to use. 
So, I'd like to put them in my LTSP VLAN and stick bunches of them in the
english classrooms as writing stations (OpenOffice.org is what I'm
thinking right now - but maybe there is something else?).  But, I need to
make it easy for our students to access their files on the OS X server on
the other side of the LTSP server.  I don't need these iMacs to run OS X,
just boot into Linux, let the student log in with his/her Open Directory
account, and access the same files she/he sees when sitting at a networked
OS X machine.

So, what do I need to look at, learn about, think about to get this
working?

Some thoughts already running through my head
1 - should I make my LTSP Server a single NIC server, move all the DHCP to
my current DHCP server and then all the LTSP clients will already be in
the same LAN?
2 - what protocol should the LTSP server/clients use to access the OS X
Server -- AFP?  NFS?  SMB?
3 - how do I properly get the LTSP server to authenticate users to the 
Open Directory server?  I tried this last year for fun and had some weird
isses with the root user on LTSP - every time I logged in as root it
forced me to change the password.  Very strange.

Thanks for any insight,
Christopher Butler
Director of Technology
Shore Country Day School
Beverly, MA 01915
cbutler at shoreschool.org


A text picture to illustrate the network setup:

                   Internet
                      |
                      |
                    Router
                      |
                      |
                     Lan
                      |
                      |
    --+---------+-----+------+-----------+--...
      |         |            |           |
 OSX Server LTSP Server  OSX Client  OSX Client
                |
                |
                |
        --+-----+-------+-------------+---...
          |             |             |
      LTSP Client   LTSP Client   LTSP Client