Re: Home directories blank in diskless workstations

On 18 February 2015 at 20:43, Wolfgang Schweer <wschweer@arcor.de> wrote:

Hi.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 10:29:51PM +0530, uday bhatye wrote:
>
> I'm using wheezy. A mix of thin clients & diskless workstations on
> 10.0.0.0/8 network.
>
> Used sitesummary2ldapdhcp, then added machines on main network to
> workstation-hosts netgroup.

Hi,

Firstly, thanks very much for the reply.

Adding diskless workstations isn't needed -- unless you want to use an
alternative to LDM (for LTSP clients). See the documentation for
details.

I read about adding them to netgroup in some list discussion while trying to troubleshoot. But, now I realize that it was old days.

> Problem is when clients boot as thin clients, we get the home
> directories and can see other users' directories above them, also new
> files created are saved. Same machine, if booted as diskless
> workstation shows nothing apart from a blank Desktop directory in the
> home directory.

If LDM is used (which is the LTSP default), only the home directory of
the logged in user is mounted (using sshfs), nothing else. So this is
the expected behaviour. See the documentation for details how to use
another DM like KDM, GDM or Lightdm along with NFS and automount.

I mean to say that as diskless client, I get a blank home directory (similar to what we get on first time user login) without any of the user's files that are already present in /skole/tjener/home0/<user>/. But, I can see those when booted as thin client.

> Any new files created are lost after reboot.

This is strange. Do you really mean files in the user's home directory?

Yes, I start diskless client (on main network) , log in and create/ download some files in home directory. I logout, relogin and they are still there. But I reboot the client, they are gone.

Moreover, mount command on diskless workstation doesn't show anything mounted as home and pwd shows /skole/tjener/home0/<user>

> Also, kerberos ticket is not renewing on clients.

This is expected for diskless workstations as the login via LDM doesn't
allow it. If needed, it can be renewed manually -- see the
documentation.

> Googled and tried a lot with no luck.

I guess you'd be better off reading the Debian Edu documentation
available locally via https://www in the Debian Edu network -- or try
this all-in-one page:

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne

and use your browser's search function.

I read it already but manual renewal as discribed in above docs -- by entering the password is also not working on diskless workstation.

Wolfgang

Regards,

Uday B. Bhatye
Physics Department,
ASP College, Devrukh
Ratnagiri
Maharashtra - 415 804

9404933003