[K12OSN] Need suggestions for poor man's load balancing....

[David Trask]

Hi all,

Here's my scenario...I have a big K12LTSP server, a Samba/LDAP server, and
a seperate DHCP server on my school network.  I have it set up so that
everything is on the same subnet....no private network for the LTSP stuff.
 The DHCP server is a Fedora box that simply does nothing else except
DHCP....I use the "next-server" option to pass the boot info to the
terminals.  Works great.  I have just bought another K12LTSP server....had
the $$$...planning for the future and want to spread the load a little.  I
read http://republico.estv.ipv.pt/~nmct/ltsp/ha/ltsp-ha-howto-en-gpl.html 
and while it's intriguing....I think I have to give up too much at this
point to make it work.  One of which is no static addresses in DHCP....I
need my static "reserved" addresses.  Since I'm using Samba/LDAP...syncing
users and so forth is not an issue....what I want is to possibly set up
DHCP to fill up one server and once that's done...go to the next one....or
possibly a "chooser" (think I saw one once) to allow the user to choose
the server they want to access....or possibly hard-coding machines into
one server or the other?  I'm open to suggestions....I'm hoping to tackle
this by the end of the week....fire away with your ideas!

also...could it be possible to do something similar to what's being done
in http://republico.estv.ipv.pt/~nmct/ltsp/ha/ltsp-ha-howto-en-gpl.html 
yet still use a seperate DHCP server?

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Coordinator
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100