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Re: Debian Edu 11 Diskless Workstation Management for multiple schools



[ Wolfgang Schweer, 2021-08-18 ]
> [ Mike Gabriel, 2021-08-18 ]
> > for my school customers, I maintained my own Diskless Workstation chroot in
> > a subfolder on some central server that deployed this chroot over to other
> > schools (over night, incrementally, only when changes had been applied).
> > Basically, I'd like to keep things that way.
> 
> It should be possible, I guess.
> 
> > However, with the new LTSP approach, is there a chroot for diskless
> > workstations anymore, at all. From my understanding, LTSP now creates a
> > SquashFS image from the local system and thus uses that as a template. I
> > wonder, if I can continue with my current deployment mechanism or if I need
> > to re-invent things here.
> 
> LTSP is also able to deal with diskless chroots that are maintained 
> manually like you ardebian-edu-ltsp-instale supposed doing it.

The bookworm version of the 'sbin/debian-edu-ltsp-install' tool has 
been improved. It is now possible to create an LTSP chroot for diskless 
workstations, usable as root filesystem via NFS. Also, as another 
option, a related SquashFS image can be generated.

If the BD ISO image has been used to install the combined server and the 
medium containing that ISO is still 'inserted' the ISO is used to 
install the chroot as well.

As an example, copy the bookworm version to /usr/local/sbin on a stock 
Debian Edu combined server and run:
debian-edu-ltsp-install --dlw yes --diskless_workstation no --desktop mate

You will then be able to choose 'Diskless Workstation (NFS chroot rootfs)'
from the iPXE menu on LTSP clients.
 
As far as multiple LTSP servers are concerned, please note that due to 
kerberized NFS for the home directories the /etc/krb5.keytab file must be 
LTSP server specific. See the 'debian-edu-ltsp-install' tool code.

Work in progress. Feel free to improve the tool.

Wolfgang

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