Diskless Linux terminals
 
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For enterprise users, price is one of the leading factors for jumping from a proprietary client or server operating system to Linux. Linux has become a cheap way to roll out extra servers or workstations in large network environments because the system requirements for running Linux on an Intel-based desktop or server are low.
Users looking to further network expansion at low cost should also be aware of the work done by the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP).
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The LTSP is an open-source development effort run by programmers and network integrators to create a network of diskless Linux workstations. It began last August, and the technology recently won first place at the First Annual Linux Solutions Awards last September, sponsored by LinuxToday.com.
As with Windows-based terminals running off Microsoft Windows Terminal Server, the major highlights of the technology are the absence of a hard drive and minimal memory and processor requirements on the client side.
Diskless Linux terminals consist of a box containing an X86 processor, at least 16M bytes of RAM, a network interface card (NIC) and a boot ROM. The boot ROM makes the initial network boot and file system mount to the server, which allows the Linux kernel to download to the terminal's RAM. The only major pieces of software that run on the client side are the Linux kernel and XFree86 (X Windows). All applications are run from the server.
One of the trickiest parts of the project is setting up the boot ROM so that the workstation automatically communicates with the server upon power-up. To do this you install an NIC with an EPROM socket to hold the boot ROM chip. Before installing the boot ROM however, etherboot software must be configured and installed on the chip with an EPROM burner. For a guide on where to find these components and how to set up the boot EPROM, click here .
The LTSP homepage has detailed documentation for setting up a Red Hat Linux 6.0 or 6.1 server as a Linux terminal server. Click here for more info.
This site also contains information about installing all the other components needed on the server, such as boottp and X-Windows.
The terminals make good clients for e-mail, Web browsing and data entry programs running from the Linux terminal server. Some drawbacks to the system are a lack of advanced management tools for managing clients and the lack of network printing capabilities. (A printer can be attached to an individual client's printer port, however).
Setting up a Linux terminal server network may not be for everyone. To successfully implement the system, you will probably need one or several people on your staff to be familiar with Linux kernel programming. Technical support is limited to downloadable documentation, a series of online "how-to" documents and communication with other Linux terminal server users. (In other words, there's no 24-7 support available, as there is with a Windows NT terminal server, or a regular Red Hat server for that matter.) For users who aren't do-it-yourself types but are interested in diskless Linux workstations, there are some commercial Linux terminal software packages available from Mandrake and SuSE. Additionally, a commercial out-of-the-box Linux network computer is also available from a French company called Linbox.
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Phil Hochmuth is a Network World Senior Writer and a former systems integrator. You can reach him at phochmut@nww.com.
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