Re: Linux Lab & Linux Server

[Bill Tihen <bill@tasis.ch>]

Hi,

> You can even boot and run without any local hard disk... Look at the Netboot-
> HOW-TO if you´re interested doing this.

I looked into that about 2 years ago.  I also thought Netboot needed special eproms burned (I don't have that kind of equipment) and on top of that tftp which I thought is quite a security risk.  Probably by now that has evolved quite a bit.  I will do some research thanks for the tip.  Any additional tips would be appreciated.  Have you tried it?  Will Netboot be slow if an entire OS and ALL applications need to traverse the network?  How many machines can 100 Mbs support.  


> You can limit user resources with rlimit. 

Thanks -- this is just what I need to make VNC practical.  I guess with students mostly running the apps locally it won't be a huge issue for the Linux lab, just my Mac lab.  I hope it's easy to congfigure.  Any good web-sites?

BTW, can anybody recommend a good resources on configuring quota.  My current student server has 1% disk space left.  I am going to buy the largest drive Linux will support, but I want to make sure this doesn't happen again.  

Anybody know what the maximum disk size (or partition size) is for the kernel 2.2.5?


>Instead of sendmail I recommend 
> you to use postfix (or at least anything else..).

Hmmm.  I've heard this, but I don't think I'll transition now.  Maybe later.  I would have to modify my cgi scripts -- but I guess that wouldn't be that difficult.  I'll do a little research.  How many other things break when changing the mailer?

> VNC? Do you really need this? 

VNC is for the Macs.  I am sick of all the problems I have with them.  The school has a policy that students must login to use the Internet  but on the Mac it is hard to ensure this.  VNC will force this on the users and Netscape won't continually crash if run on the server.  This could be a problem for my poor server though if 15 people are running VNC and Netscape simultaneously -- especially since VNC keeps the session active.  VNC has a clumsy login and overkill for what I want, but it is much more stable than the free X Sessions that I have tried.

Thanks for the Input.  This will help me create a live test bed for seul-edu.  

Bill