8.7. Thin Client Setup

8.7.1. Assigning a Machine a Static IP address

After you have made any changes to /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd-skolelinux.conf, either by editing the file directly, or via Webmin, you need to restart the DHCP3-server for the changes to take affect. This is either done from the command line with /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart or in Webmin by pressing the button labeled 'Apply Changes'.

All servers in Skolelinux/Debian-edu, mainserver and thinclientserver, run DHCP-servers. This means that any machine, workstation, thinclient and other machines (laptops, Windows, Mac machines) will get a dynamic IP address, that is, the IP address given to the individual machine is likely to be different every time that machine connects.

In order to make your life easier, you should make these machines have a static IP address. Add their MAC addresses to the right group in the DHCP-setup.

host ltsp010 {
        hardware ethernet     00:00:00:00:00:00;
        fixed-address         ltsp010;
        #filename              "/tftpboot/lts/vmlinuz-2.4.19-ltsp-1";
        filename              "/tftpboot/lts/pxelinux.0";
        #option option-128     e4:45:74:68:00:00;
        #option option-129     "NIC=3c509";
    }

host static00 {
       hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
       fixed-address static00;
    }

host printer00 {
       hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
       fixed-address printer00;
    }

group {
    host ltspserver00 {
       hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
       fixed-address ltspserver00;
    }

8.7.2. Creating Etherboot ROM Images for Ordinary (non-PXE) network cards.[id=matic]

I strongly advise you to use PXE cards, which eliminate the need for the use of failure-prone media such as floppy disks. But if you have to use floppy disks to boot your thin clients, then there are some small tricks to learn. The floppy disks you need, are ready and available for download at rom-o-matic.com. The latest stable version that is known to work well with Skolelinux/Debian-edu is 5.0.11, which is the recommended one.

There are two things you need to do::

• Find the correct ROM for your network card. There are over 250 on the list of available network cards, which makes the whole point of PXE very appealing.

• Once you have managed to find the correct ROM for your network card, you need to put it on a floppy disk, on a Linux machine, as root

  cat eb-5.2.5-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0

8.7.3. Special Floppy Disk with Support for 30 network cards[id=universalboot]

This floppy disk image contains the ROM for the 30 most popular and widely-used network cards, which means that there is a big chance that you don't need to fiddle around trying to figure out what kind of network card you have.

This floppy disk is a part of the project Thinstation, from there you download "Universal boot floppy". The file you have downloaded should be BootDisk522b.zip. In Windows you use a zip program to unpack it. In Skolelinux/Debian-edu you unpack it with unzip BootDisk522b.zip, (you may need to install unzip, apt-get install unzip). While unzipping the file you should see something like this:

klaus@tjener:$ unzip BootDisk522b.zip
Archive:  BootDisk522b.zip
  inflating: rawrite2.exe
  inflating: ebnet522.dsk
  inflating: Readme.txt
	  

8.7.4. Using the MAC Address to Assign a Fixed IP Number to a Thin Client

In order to be able to specially customise your various thin clients, you have to be able to identify each of them separately. You can do this with the help of each thin client's network card and its unique MAC address (which every network card has).

Most (but not all) network cards have their respective MAC addresses printed on them somewhere. It often looks something like 0000864A585A, or 00-00-86-4A-58-5A, eller 00:00:86:4A:58:5A, which are numbers given in the hexidecimal system. If you don't see anything like that printed on the card, then you can have a look at the file /var/log/syslog, where the thin client's MAC address is registered when it tries to start up. To see what is being logged at the time the thin client starts up, use the command

tail -f /var/log/syslog

Jan  4 19:04:44 tjener dhcpd-2.2.x: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:00:86:4a:58:5a via eth1
Jan  4 19:04:44 tjener dhcpd-2.2.x: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.0.201 to 00:00:86:4a:58:5a via eth1
Jan  4 19:04:45 tjener dhcpd-2.2.x: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.0.201 from 00:00:86:4a:58:5a via eth1
Jan  4 19:04:45 tjener dhcpd-2.2.x: DHCPACK on 192.168.0.201 to 00:00:86:4a:58:5a via eth1

host ltsp010 {
        hardware ethernet     00:00:86:4a:58:5a;
        fixed-address         192.168.0.10;
	#filename              "/tftpboot/lts/vmlinuz-2.4.19-ltsp-1";
        filename              "/tftpboot/lts/pxelinux.0";
        #option option-128     e4:45:74:68:00:00;
        #option option-129     "NIC=3c509";
    }

Remember that a hash-mark ( # ) before a line in a file /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd-skolelinux.conf is used as a comment symbol, which means that this line is just a comment. In this case I have put a comment symbol at the start of the line

#filename              "/tftpboot/lts/vmlinuz-2.4.19-ltsp-1";

filename              "/tftpboot/lts/pxelinux.0";

Another choice you can make for each single thin client in this file is to activate (that is, remove the comment symbol) at the beginning of

option option-128     e4:45:74:68:00:00;
option option-129     "NIC=3c509";
	  

8.7.5. Customising Thin Clients

In the file /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf you have the possibility to specially customise each individual thin client. You can also make adaptations that cover all of the clients at once.

Here I want you to note that there is already a large document which describes how to set up thin clients ltsp.org Look in the documentation menu.

I have only mentioned the most important changes you can make in /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf. I recommend that everyone should read the documentation that is found at http://www.ltsp.org

[ltsp050]
PRINTER_0_DEVICE =/dev/lp0
PRINTER_0_TYPE   =P

[ltsp051]
X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL    = "Microsoft"
X_MOUSE_DEVICE      = "/dev/ttyS0"
X_MOUSE_RESOLUTION  = 400
X_MOUSE_BUTTONS     = 2
X_MOUSE_EMULATE3BTN = Y

X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL  = "imps/2"
X_MOUSE_DEVICE    = "/dev/input/mice"
RCFILE_01               = "usbdev"
	    

#!/bin/sh
echo "USB Mouse Support..."
insmod usbcore
insmod usb-uhci
insmod input
insmod mousedev
insmod usbmouse
echo "USB Keyboard Support..."
insmod keybdev
insmod usbkbd

[ltsp052]
X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL   = "IMPS/2"

[ltsp053]
RCFILE_01=floppyd

[ltsp054]
XSERVER=XF86_SVGA

[ltsp060]
X_MODE_0=800x600