snsweigel Posted February 28, 2008 Posted February 28, 2008 I have been over and over the notes on the thinstation site and have tried several builds... I need some help.... Here's what I am doing. We have a fleet of 100+ machines that are getting to slow for the current apps. We want to change them into thinstations. I am stuck... I have partitioned the hard disk, syslinuxed the drive, picked drivers, rebuilt the image, and copied the 4 files. I have copied the thinstation.conf.user to the root of the boot hard disk. I cannot figure out what changes I need to make to the thinstation.conf.buildtime to look for this file on the local hard disk. we are not using a dhcp server or a tftp server for now.... we will just edit the thinstaion.conf.user... If I can get this machine to read it! Can someone let me know what lines I should change and what the proper syntax is.... I am very new to all this.... PS... I know the machine will work and the thinstation.conf.user is working because I use it with a cd rom prebuilt and it works great..... Thanks!!!! I hope someone can help soon, before I scream.... not good with cubicles......
Geoff Posted February 28, 2008 Posted February 28, 2008 A TFTP server is required for thinstation to boot correctly if you are following the documentation.. If you do not want to use a TFTP server and serve the configuration files dynamically from it you can fudge it. You must build a custom image for each and every machine, customizing the build.conf and thinstation.conf.buildtime for each machine. It's easier just to run a TFTP server really.
Ric_ Posted February 28, 2008 Posted February 28, 2008 You do really need the TFTP server as it kind of revolves around it. Incidentally, this is also the easiest bit to set up! I made some basic instructions that I demoed during a conference session but I cannot lay my hands on them at the moment. It does prove that you can get it going in 30 mins though!
snsweigel Posted February 28, 2008 Author Posted February 28, 2008 thinstaion.conf.user is stored on local media (e.g., the hard drive of the client computer with the path STORAGE_PATH/thinstation.profile/thinstation.conf.user), and its configuration directives override ALL other conf files. The client will only know to look for this file if thinstation.conf.buildtime is properly configured with the STORAGE_PATH setting. I guess this is what I was looking to find out how to do... but I can't figure it out yet..... so far, everyone is cheering for a TFTP server... so this is where the files are dished up from... OK, but how do you assign an IP to your machine without the conf file stored locally and without a DHCP server.... our company has never deployed one of those and all the machines have static IPs. I might look into the TFTP server, just for ease of changing multiple boots at the same time... it sounds alot more time effective... but how do I get around the IP issue.
snsweigel Posted February 28, 2008 Author Posted February 28, 2008 Well, if I need a DHCP server to use a TFTP server, then I'm back to square one. NO DHCP used here.... This is the way we have done it for 35 years, and until my manager retires, there won't be any changes made. So... how do you fudge it? We have deployed around 5 machines with them booting off of a cd rom prebuilt with the .user file on the cd rom... the problem with this is the machines we need to convert are all mounted in 1U cases and don't have any way to install cd roms, no room in them even if we cut the cases... they are all mounted in a computer room and the monitor/kbd/mouse are at the stations via KVM extendors... they also don't boot to usb flash drives... older motherboards. even if we could use cd roms, I am not a fan of burning a new cd rom for each machine.... I would rather remote into them by installing a samba share on them and making the changes with them still mounted in the rack.... sorry, I'm rambling.... any better instructions out there with ideas on how to boot from a hard disk and have the boot look to the hard disk for the .user configuration file?
snsweigel Posted February 28, 2008 Author Posted February 28, 2008 (edited) .... If you do not want to use a TFTP server and serve the configuration files dynamically from it you can fudge it. You must build a custom image for each and every machine, customizing the build.conf and thinstation.conf.buildtime for each machine...... why? Can't you just build one image that points to the local .user config file? Then all I would have to do is change the user name, machine name, and IP number on the .user config file and the machine would be up and running... It may be a little more work than a tftp server, but it's not as much work as fat clients..... Oh, yeah... by the way.... if I put all the settings in the .buildtime file and rebuild, then yes it does work... but like you said... this is way to much work to rebuild each image. That's what I'm trying to avoid by using a second thinstation.conf. file, the local .user file..... Edited February 28, 2008 by snsweigel
Geoff Posted February 28, 2008 Posted February 28, 2008 Well you can try it. I just don't know if it works, because I don't do it that way.
Oops_my_bad Posted March 4, 2008 Posted March 4, 2008 You do really need the TFTP server as it kind of revolves around it. Incidentally, this is also the easiest bit to set up! I made some basic instructions that I demoed during a conference session but I cannot lay my hands on them at the moment. It does prove that you can get it going in 30 mins though! Would there be any chance you could get hold of these instructions? I'm sort of at the tinkering stage with it, but some clear direction would be superb
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