August 2003 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

WLUG Meeting - Thurs. August 14th - 7PM

by Andy Stewart

HI Everybody, I'm going to announce this meeting "early" (at least relative to most of our meeting announcements) in the hope that it will whet your Linux appetite and entice you to attend this meeting. The meeting topic will be the Linux Terminal Server Project (http://www.ltsp.org) The speaker will be your fearless leader, Andy Stewart. With the use of this software, a person can create a network of computers which uses one powerful server and any number of less powerful diskless client computers. A user would log into the client computer, and would be doing all of their work on the more powerful server transparently. Some advantages to this technique are: - maintenance is largely localized to the server - reuse of old, otherwise obsolete, equipment - security concerns are localized to the server - control over what users can access One disadvantage: - if the sever dies, everybody is dead No doubt you're asking: - how can I boot Linux on a diskless computer? - how is it that I do my work on the server? - why is system management easier with this configuration? - in what practical situation is this configuration advantageous? The answers to those questions, and many more, will be forthcoming at the meeting. I will prepare slides for the meeting which I'll put on the WLUG website afterwards. I will also walk through the many files required to setup this configuration. A live demo will be part of the meeting. To make this a bit more interesting, I'd like to ask a few people to bring in some equipment to help me (please RSVP to me to insure that we have enough of the right things): - a multisync monitor with 1024x768@72Hz capability (my spare died) - a 10/100 network hub or switch - some Ethernet cables - one or two other client machines: - could be laptops with network capability and bootable floppy - at least a P90 with 32 MB of memory, bootable floppy, video, network, etc. My hope is that we could demo 2-3 working clients off of my laptop server. I'll bring one known working client plus the server. See ya later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Aug. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Linksys Router

by Michael Long

Thanks for all the feedback. I used YaST (SuSE's configuration tool) to configured the interface with a static IP and entered in the ip addresses of the dns servers that the router is using. Hopefully the dns servers have static ip's. Cheers, Mike

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] SLIPS MA Open Source Bill

by Baris Hasdemir

Bill Mills-Curran wrote: > Matt, > > Do a google search on linux education -- there are some pretty > heavy-duty efforts under way to promote the use of linux in school > systems. There was a report on that in /. recently, too. > > Bill > "SEUL/edu is dedicated to furthering the use of Linux and other open resources in education. This covers all aspects of educational uses of Linux, by teachers, parents, and students." http://seul.org/edu/ they prepare regular reports, too. http://seul.org/edu/reports.html baris

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] SLIPS MA Open Source Bill

by Chuck Homic

On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 10:09:59PM -0400, Matt Higgins wrote: > New to the list, and wanted to know what you all thought. I'm looking to > put together a bill that will require state gov to consider OSS when > sending out RFP's. The bill would mirror those being proposed/stalled in > other states such as Washington and Texas. > I have been in contact with state Rep Robert Spellane who is positive > about the subject. I believe he would be more responsive if the WLUG > were also supporting this. I think this is a great idea. I live in NY now... I kinda wish I had the free time to mirror your efforts here. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind updates as your efforts progress. Keep us informed! > Further more I think It would be interesting to get involved with public > schools in Worcester to promote the use of Linux. I put up a small page > on my web site to address this topic, which I have called SLIPS > (Supporting Linux In Public Schools). This is cool too. Just want to check that these are two separate efforts. (Your subject line seems to imply that it is one.) I think advocating Linux in schools is a great idea. But anything that you intend to become a law, you obviously want to avoid mentioning any specific OSS projects. I mean, whether a municipality chooses Linux, FreeBSD, OpenOffice, Mozilla, or whatever, it's a win for Free/Open software. -Chuck

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] SLIPS MA Open Source Bill

by Bill Mills-Curran

On 1 Aug 2003, Matt Higgins wrote: <snip> MH> Further more I think It would be interesting to get involved with public MH> schools in Worcester to promote the use of Linux. I put up a small page MH> on my web site to address this topic, which I have called SLIPS MH> (Supporting Linux In Public Schools). (btw.. I think the next LUG topic MH> should include LTSP! I have this working in a vmware window using just MH> one comp) <snip> Matt, Do a google search on linux education -- there are some pretty heavy-duty efforts under way to promote the use of linux in school systems. There was a report on that in /. recently, too. Bill

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] SLIPS MA Open Source Bill

by Doug Chamberlin

At 8/1/2003 10:09 PM (Friday), Matt Higgins wrote: >New to the list, and wanted to know what you all thought. I'm looking to >put together a bill that will require state gov to consider OSS when >sending out RFP's. The bill would mirror those being proposed/stalled in >other states such as Washington and Texas. >I have been in contact with state Rep Robert Spellane who is positive >about the subject. I believe he would be more responsive if the WLUG >were also supporting this. An admirable goal. Hard work but there seems to be some movement (as you have noticed). >Further more I think It would be interesting to get involved with public >schools in Worcester to promote the use of Linux. I put up a small page >on my web site to address this topic, which I have called SLIPS >(Supporting Linux In Public Schools). (btw.. I think the next LUG topic >should include LTSP! I have this working in a vmware window using just >one comp) Also an admirable goal. However, this one presents an even larger challenge. Looking at it realistically, school system educators (teachers as well as administrators) are the most stubborn, least innovative group I have ever encountered. There are exceptions in each school but to achieve adoption of anything which is not brain-dead simple to use is an impossibility. Linux is far from brain-dead simple to use. Better to concentrate on promoting business usage and then let the school systems lag behind as they always have - unless you are a glutton for punishment.

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Linksys Router

by Matt Higgins

> Sorry for the off posts .. I have 2 clients w/ 2 configs. What I think you need to do is the following... Check the DHCP range that your router is serving: 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.254 (on my Router/Accesspoint also linksys) This info can be found on the DHCP tab of the routers web interface. This means you can safely assign address 2-99 statically on your LAN. Assuming you have not changed the internal ip of the router which is 192.168.1.1. If you assigned your server 192.168.1.1 you would have an address conflict. Give the other box with the service you want to expose on of these free address 192.168.1.10 will due. Then check the status page on the router to determine the external DNS servers and add those to /etc/resolve.conf Im not sure of you distribution but somewhere you need to set the default gateway for the server. On my wireless net the gw is 192.168.1.1 again its a linksys and should be the same. If you want to make sure run the route command. It will list your default gateway. Finally update your forwarding rules to reflect your clients new static ip. DONE! Note you should be able to access your current verizon DNS servers no mater what ip they give you. I had version and a similar config worked for me. If for some reason you cannot access those DNS servers you could run a caching name server on you LAN to provide DNS. That could be a cool Linux project to. On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 22:20, Charles R. Anderson wrote: > If you statically configure your client, can you not use the Linksys as the DNS > address? Maybe the Linksys can act as a DNS Forwarder, forwarding all requests > to your ISP's DNS servers. > > On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 06:31:14PM -0400, Michael Long wrote: > mlong> rules. I would prefer to use static IP's but I am depending on my isp > mlong> (verizon dsl) provider for their dns servers and they serve me with a > mlong> dynamic address which changes reqularly.

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Linksys Router

by Charles R. Anderson

If you statically configure your client, can you not use the Linksys as the DNS address? Maybe the Linksys can act as a DNS Forwarder, forwarding all requests to your ISP's DNS servers. On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 06:31:14PM -0400, Michael Long wrote: mlong> rules. I would prefer to use static IP's but I am depending on my isp mlong> (verizon dsl) provider for their dns servers and they serve me with a mlong> dynamic address which changes reqularly. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Aug. 2, 2003

SLIPS MA Open Source Bill

by Matt Higgins

New to the list, and wanted to know what you all thought. I'm looking to put together a bill that will require state gov to consider OSS when sending out RFP's. The bill would mirror those being proposed/stalled in other states such as Washington and Texas. I have been in contact with state Rep Robert Spellane who is positive about the subject. I believe he would be more responsive if the WLUG were also supporting this. Further more I think It would be interesting to get involved with public schools in Worcester to promote the use of Linux. I put up a small page on my web site to address this topic, which I have called SLIPS (Supporting Linux In Public Schools). (btw.. I think the next LUG topic should include LTSP! I have this working in a vmware window using just one comp) Tell me your thoughts ! Matt

Aug. 2, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Linksys Router

by Clint Moyer

Can you not assign static IPs to each box on your local LAN and config the Linksys router as a DHCP client but not as a server? On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 18:31:14 -0400 "Michael Long" <mlong(a)datalong.com> wrote: > >Hi All, > >I have a linksys router that is acting as a dhcp server. >The last >firmware upgrade has change the lease time options to >allow a lease to >expire between 1-99999 minutes. Occasionally one of my >boxes gets >assigned a different IP address which invalidates the >port forwarding >rules. I would prefer to use static IP's but I am >depending on my isp >(verizon dsl) provider for their dns servers and they >serve me with a >dynamic address which changes reqularly. > >My initial thought is to write a script that checks the >IP of my box and >if it has changed, use links to update the port >forwarding rules on the >router by sending the appropriate URL to the router. Any >other >solutions, workarounds, hints or feedback are welcome. > >thanks, >Mike > >_______________________________________________ >Wlug mailing list >Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

Aug. 2, 2003