Re: New configuration subsystem for LTSP

On Thu, 2010-12-30 at 20:26 +0200, Alkis Georgopoulos wrote:
> So the daemon will be a SimpleHTTPServer, listening on port 8080, and
> the client will be able to use e.g. wget from the initramfs to get its
> configuration, right? If so, I like that part, even though the sysadmin
> will need to learn python and to write a plugin to state "if client ram
> > 500, make it a fat client". Maybe rules-based configuration files and
> an editor for them can be added later.

Currently it's a XMLRPC daemon listening on https. It can also listen on
a UNIX socket for easy interfacing with C software like ldm.

The branches I mentioned before contain both the core software, some
plugins and example client code.

In your case, you'd probably like to update the "ltscfg" plugin to
support hooks provided by other plugins, then write a plugin that does
all the checks you want for fat clients.

That way "ltscfg" will do its usual work which is to get a lts.conf,
parse it and store the rendered environment, just before writting the
environment to disk it'll call the hooks, one of which would update the
configuration based on stuff like memory usage.

> My main concern is, since many many thin clients here have only 64 Mb or
> 128 Mb RAM, and python with just `import xmlrpclib` adds about 9 MB
> overhead (no jetpipe or anything else running, no RAM for it), could you
> leave the ltsp-cluster-agent-thinclient optional? I.e. if it's
> available / enabled, use it, else just use wget?

That's the plan for now, if it's there it'll be used, if it's not (when
could start it only when you have >= 128MB) then it uses the old ltsp
code.

> Or in that case it will fallback to tftp and lose all the plugin
> functionality on the server?

It'd fallback to the old LTSP code which basically means tftp, so in
your case you'd have to implement the code twice. Once in the daemon for
thin clients who run it and once in the base ltsp code, unless we find
some way of putting the hooks in common somehow (like calling shell
scripts or something).

I'll add the hooks part on my todolist and will try to get an example of
that quite soon. The "ltscfg" plugin is considered stable and working as
we run it in production at our office without any issue since it started
2 weeks ago.

-- 
Stéphane Graber
Ubuntu developer
http://www.ubuntu.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers
to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and, 
should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database 
without downtime or disruption
http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl

_____________________________________________________________________
Ltsp-developer mailing list.   To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto:
      https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-developer
For additional LTSP help,   try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)

iQIcBAABCgAGBQJNHNOMAAoJEMY4l01keS1nZR8QAIhopIgm640gFbRAxn61Y8wn
DAwSTy3E0lNIRIAlfRgVK0oY4YrMtzmDqWInsPicvm216WZT/lRu2o60HiAFcVox
WpXmD+zTiUB1ATeAsDWveKPDFk/oibGvs3HLqO/IpC3yI4p1e+XW+X154GQl83aQ
6n6v7QPUgb5HmS1spL6I+CiM1rfBif+t8FwJb2Cln8XLYfrEJLeN1cUPv5EcisbE
4FgfIVHxp8m0ESVZT7KfsV1OSf5pM3QKP/WaZm5RDB7CQyfKcCAsr+vSpboRlc/v
MUm0aNVvssAV7E5kllyy+Usl0YvP62TZ05e3uahJ1iSl6BZFWfSrLPH/8cjRjIj5
8UP7xXGD1ERJPqQNmQCJzRXRnF8grl7aeP5/iP1cbtGDwBmdUcX3F2PbmBUbV1e/
VdZ3aPH1EVNWCizEbg6gtejBTguET4a5fSAkjcb1TgbeGUJ38LMrRT1oXMpdBqox
oVjQIxuSI3KUV0Utzinse0KWmJPqPXgY1VUQ3T1R9Qn++EWKefRlhbaVZiMw9h4U
jsQU6lXvun/b32yD/t8Ta0ZZqd0BvDs8rcM2lZ1B0gP7MEdmgj5bfLkucLIWvovW
h4I553s+BNPkiToaAiBCThKFBhYVq4RI/kc59sH1bHkND9Wpvw48AqGAR7MJQZ5W
WWe3WHq6UyOmsatyr12q
=O6p7
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----