Debian in strange/interesting places (was Re: Hardware advice: seeking echoes of running Linux-PC clusters)
On Mon, 29 Apr 1996, Rob Browning wrote:
> > Debian's already being used at Brookhaven National Labs, and is the
> > host for software development for a component of the Amsat "Phase
> > III" satellite. There are other users just as impressive, but I
> > don't have the space to list them all.
>
> This has probably already been done, but it'd be really nice to have a
> web page somewhere we could point people to that has info about places
> using Linux (or Debian).
Over the xmas/new year period last year my partner & I set up a debian
0.93 based system to run an internet demonstration at ConFest, an
alternative lifestyles festival held on private land in rural victoria.
We called it the "internet tent in a swamp".
The debian system was a 486-dx2-66 with 8MB RAM and 1GB of disk. It
had 6 vt330 & vt340 terminals attached via an ancient Annex I terminal
server, was connected 24 hours a day to the net via 28.8k modem to
a local service provider (about 40kms away). The system was up and
running for over a week, and in that time had over 1000 user logins.
Most days there were people using it every hour of the day and night.
a 16MB 386-33 box running windows 3.1 was also connected to the ethernet
for using netscape but the ancient vga monitor didn't survive past the
first day.
The whole setup was basically cobbled together out of spare parts and
equipment I had lying around. The only things purchased new for the
system was a modem, a 1gb hard disk, and cabling. One of the things we
were trying to show was that you don't need a lot of money or expensive
new equipment to get on the net.
It took me about 2 days to install & configure debian, compile the annex
boot software, set up the hardware, hack up an automatic user-creation
script, and write some menus using the cern-httpd web server and
lynxexec scripts and a few other minor tasks.
Stringing up the power & phone cables was a lot more work. They were
strung up over 400 metres of "wetlands" (greenie-speak for swamp) to the
property owner's house.
The setup supported all the usual internet services, including email,
irc, www, telnet, usenet news, and ftp.
There was a 'guest' login which allowed access to the WWW and a few
other services. Other services which required a personal user address
(email & irc) required the user to have their own login account. I
wrote a simple shell script which allowed a new user to login as 'new',
answer a few questions to create an account, and then login with the
newly created account. Fortunately, the internet tent was free so I
didn't have to worry about accounting or credit card details or anything
like that.
I found a timeout daemon on the net and hacked it so that it only logged
people out if there were no spare terminals available. If all terminals
were in use, and there was a user who had been logged in for more than
an hour then that person was logged out after a 5 minute warning. The
timeout daemon was only there to remind people to give others a turn,
there were no daily usage limits... they could log back in immediately
if they wanted to, but I didn't advertise that fact :-)
The system crashed once on the 3rd or 4th day when some memory simms
died...not surprising considering the average daily temperature was well
over 40 degrees Celcius. Fortunately, I had some spare simms and was
back up and running in an hour or so.
The biggest problems were heat (too much), and electricity (not enough
of it).
Craig
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