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A guide for using the terminal-server2 package.

Contents 1 The Components

Terminal-server2 is a subsytem of Mandriva Linux that is perhaps less than well publicized. If you are familiar with LTSP, it is very similar, except that it uses the server's root filesytem, rather than having a parallel, client filesystem under a different directory (like /opt). The main benefit to this type of arrangement is that the client software base will automatically be updated along with the server, rather than needing to redo an LTSP type arrangement to agree with the server software base. The negative side may be in sharing the root fileystem with a number of other machines. although in a controlled environment this shouldn't be much worse than having user accounts on the server. Terminal-server2 users unionfs over nfs, replacing clusterfs that was used for Terminal Server.

[edit] The Components

Several components are required for terminal server to work. First of all, a dhcpd service must be run to assign IPs to the client machines, in conjunction with a tftp server to serve up the boot images. (a combination of kernel and initrd). These services could potentially run on a different box than the terminal-server, but for the sake of this discussion, we'll assume the server machine is providing the services. Finally, nfs must be running on the server machine to share the root filesystem (read-only), as well as the user's home directory and selected other mount points to enable hardware configuration on the client. Terminal-server2 replaces clusternfs (used by Terminal Server) with unionfs over standard nfs, which allows unique files to be shared to the client machines, in parallel with the original file on the server, through a specialized directory structure on the server machine:

• Server: /
• Any Client: /var/lib/terminal-server/common
• Specific Client: /var/lib/terminal-server/clients/IP (IP=IP of client machine)

Unionfs overlays /var/lib/terminal-server/common on "/" for all client machines, allowing customized configuration and init scripts common to all client machines. If present, unionfs overlays /var/lib/terminal-server/client/IP on "/" for individual client machines, allowing customized configuration per client machines.

Installation of the terminal-server2 meta-package via urpmi will install all the necessary server components. There is a gui configuration tool, drakTermServ that is part of the drakxtools package, that will assist in configuring the server and client machines.

The remaining configuration of terminal-server2 is similar to Terminal Server.