Re: New configuration subsystem for LTSP

First off, this is a most wonderful and welcome discussion on the eve
of the new year.

As LTSP goes into 2011, let me just say that I think both Alkis's
implementation and Stephane's implementation may prove useful - and
both will certainly enhance the project.

Alkis's approach provides a simple shell-driven server-side
configuration system that offer much more power and control to most
sysadmins currently using LTSP.

Stephane's approach provides a plugin-based python-driven client-side
system that can perhaps be extended in other ways.

Which approach ultimately is chosen as a default to supplant getltscfg
may ultimately become the choice of the distribution, much the same
way as NBD vs NFS. This does not mean that there is any less value in
supporting both NBD and NFS.

LTSP as a project is built upon choice. Sometimes new defaults have
caused more harm than good in some environments (like nbd-proxy or
X-over-ssh), but we have always had options to disable/modify
behavior.  That, I believe is LTSP's strength above many other
projects.

I encourage the effort to be made to integrate both systems.
Ultimately, as Stephane is Ubuntu's package maintainer, we may find
that his approach becomes the default in Ubuntu. But, if both are
integrated, Alkis's approach may simply be an ltsp-build-client plugin
away.

Happy New Year, everyone!


-Gadi

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Alkis Georgopoulos <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Στις 30-12-2010, ημέρα Πεμ, και ώρα 13:46 -0500, ο/η Stéphane Graber
> έγραψε:
> > 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.
> ...
> > unless we find some way of putting the hooks in common somehow (like
> > calling shell scripts or something).
>
> I think we target different things, so maybe both new implementations
> can coexist?
> The bash/inetd daemon can take care of the shell script hooks,
> and the XMLRPC daemon can take care of the python plugins.
>
> E.g. with the bash/inetd implementation, the client can use `nc` from
> the initramfs, get its new-style-and-directly-sourceable-lts.conf before
> it even mounts /root, and select on which nbd/nfs server to connect,
> based on simple bash rules that the sysadmin specified on the server,
> without touching the chroot.
>
> Some examples a sysadmin may need while still in the initramfs:
>
> Simple boot server load balancing:
> [ "$server_cpu_usage" > 80 ] || return 0
> ROOTSERVER=my_other_server
>
> Selecting a different fat NFS chroot for a high school lab booting from
> the same DHCP server as a primary school lab:
> match "$ip" "192.168.0.2*" || return 0
> ROOTPATH=/opt/ltsp/high_school
>
> And of course the same simple rules (and GUI editor) can be used after
> the initramfs too...
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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