[K12OSN] K12LTSP wireless?

[Dan Hopson]

Thanks for your help Petre...I was just looking for a shortcut from having 
to run UTP to all the stations in the lab.  As I was reading your response, 
another question came to mind.  Presently, I have access to a Windows-based 
lab of 16 stations that are all plugged into a 24-port 10/100 switch.  A 
single 100 Mbps UTP line, connected to our school server, comes into the 
24-port switch.  I would like to attempt to boot these stations to the 
K12LTSP server to see how it will handle the 16 stations simultaneously.  
Here's my question:  Can I simply plug the K12LTSP server (both eth0 and 
eth1) into two of the free ports on the switch and it still function as an 
on demand server whenever the lab stations are booted with a K12LTSP floppy? 
  If this is possible, I can still boot to Windows via the hard drive on 
each lab station.  I teach Introduction to Networking in high school and 
this would allow me to teach both Windows and Linux networking.

Thanks again to the group!

Dan.


>From: Petre Scheie <petre at maltzen.net>
>Reply-To: "Support list for opensource software in schools." 
><k12osn at redhat.com>
>To: "Support list for opensource software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com>
>Subject: Re: [K12OSN] K12LTSP wireless?
>Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:58:59 -0600
>
>Doubtful.  I think the consensus these days is that one should use a 
>gigabit card for eth0.  Using a 100Mbit card for eth0 will work for up to 
>perhaps 10 or 15 clients, but even that assumes you are using a switch 
>which keeps each client's traffic separate from all others.  Wireless is 
>shared bandwidth, and loses more of its bandwidth to overhead.  Even with 
>802.11g and proprietary compression, you won't get anywhere near fast 
>ethernet's 100Mbit (which doesn't really deliver 100Mbit either).  If you 
>want to do wireless, I'd suggest having a few clients connect via wire to 
>an access point that is in bridging mode, and have one card in the server 
>for each access point, and put each AP/wireless-card-in-server pair on a 
>different channel.  There are 11 channels to choose from but they overlap, 
>so to get enough 'space' between the channels, you really only can use 
>channels 1,6, and 11.  That means you can support three APs.  That's using 
>802.11g which operates in the 2.4Ghz band.  Then if you repeat that setup 
>using 802.11a equipment, which operates in the 5Ghz band, but isn't as 
>commonly found, you should be able to add a few more.  I'm doubtful that 
>you'll get to 25 clients, though.
>
>I'd start small, with say five clients and then work up from there.  Oh, 
>and having the clients work directly with a wireless card will be hard.  
>The client boot image only supports one or two cards, and hasn't been 
>updated for a while.  You'll have more success if you run a wire from the 
>client to an access point which then connects to the server.
>
>Petre
>
>Dan Hopson wrote:
>>OK...I guess what I am wanting to do is have a wireless NIC only on eth0 
>>and wireless NICs in the terminal machines...is this feasible with 25 
>>terminals?
>>
>>Dan.
>>
>>
>>>From: Petre Scheie <petre at maltzen.net>
>>>Reply-To: "Support list for opensource software in schools." 
>>><k12osn at redhat.com>
>>>To: "Support list for opensource software in schools." 
>>><k12osn at redhat.com>
>>>Subject: Re: [K12OSN] K12LTSP wireless?
>>>Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 07:53:48 -0600
>>>
>>>Perhaps but not necessarily; there are a lot of cards out there.  Since 
>>>you reference eth0 and eth1, are you thinking of putting wireless cards 
>>>in the server?  I see two problems with that plan: 1) wireless bandwidth, 
>>>which is shared, won't handle many client connections before it gets 
>>>saturated; 2) running a wireless card in the server suggests you want to 
>>>try wireless clients, which isn't very feasible at this point.  A package 
>>>was made a year or two ago that would work with some wireless client 
>>>cards, but the list is quite short.  It's kind of a catch-22: to talk to 
>>>the wireless card, there has to be support for PCMCIA, but to do that you 
>>>have to have a kernel loaded, but to load a kernel you have to have 
>>>networking working which means supporting PCMCIA, and so on.
>>>
>>>More information on what you want to do would be helpful.  Tell us what 
>>>you have in mind.
>>>
>>>Petre
>>>
>>>Dan Hopson wrote:
>>>
>>>>I am just getting started with Linux networking.  Will K12LTSP work with 
>>>>all wireless NICs on both eth0 and eth1?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks, Dan.
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
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