[K12OSN] Tuning LTSP Performance

[James P. Kinney III]

On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 23:41 -0400, Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:

> Easy.  Say you're a "curious" kid.  :-)  Just insert your own switch 
> (yes, they're available on eBay) in between the server and its network 
> drop.  On your switch, mirror the port to your laptop (laptop HD's are 
> pretty big nowadays).  Boom, you've done it, and no, it ain't that hard 
> to do.  I do this sort of thing regularly at work as part of my network 
> engineer duties when troubleshooting certain problems.
> 
> However, if the server's physically secured, then very likely its 
> network drop is also physically secured, if it's a standard building.  
> Thus, it becomes, obviously, much more difficult to insert any gear in 
> between the LTSP server and its network drop.

It is pretty easy to insert a switch between the upstream feed side in a
classroom and the classroom switch itself. But that only gets the
traffic in the classroom. If the setup is using a classroom server model
(teacher sits at the server console, thin clients for the kids), then
only traffic between the server and back-end storage server (and web
crap, etc) is available.

The fun part is: an kid smart enough to know how to get the right switch
that support port mirroring, and can pull this off, should be working
for the school immediately! This does 2 things: sends a message that
smart, clever people are actually good (Yay! Education!) and most
importantly the school now has a bit of oversight on the student with
excellent hacking skills. Getting them involved in a positive way helps
deter the "turn to the darkside" that getting in trouble will encourage.
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC                           
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7


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