[school-discuss] LTSP and school-provided networks on same physical infrastructure

[Daniel Howard <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

One dilemma that we're running into in our transition to K12LTSP is how to 
use the existing school network infrastructure for two independent 
networks.  Until we can convince the city school district otherwise, 
they'll likely insist that we keep the teacher's Win XP computers on the 
school district's network, fed to the school via unreliable T1.  The PTA is 
willing to pay for a business-tier cable modem service (5 Mbps down, 
384kbps up) to the school, and we want to feed the K12LTSP servers and all 
clients (computer lab and classrooms) via this cable modem network using 
the web filtering capability of K12LTSP (Squidgard, IIRC).  Problem: only 
one network cable is run to each class, so we have to feed both networks 
via the same cabling, all of which lead star-topology into the wiring 
closet (although maybe a few extensions via switches at the end of one 
cable run feeding multiple rooms).

Logically, can we just leave the teacher's PCs talking to the school 
district's gateway and their T1, while our Linux thin client servers talk 
to the cable modem router and to the thin clients over the same Cat5 
cable?  Will there be problems with net booting, collisions, etc?

Any other ideas for solutions to this conundrum?  Ultimately down the road, 
we envision the district approving the K12LTSP solution and allowing us to 
combine both T1 and cable modem data feeds to the school into a common 
router (so that we have more total bandwidth for all PCs, plus a backup 
architecture) and the teachers ultimately using OSS for their admin 
applications on thin clients in each classroom, but who knows how long that 
will take...

Regards,
Daniel



Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Quadrock Communications, Inc
404.264.9123 main
678.528.5839 fax
404.625.1593 cell