Re: Multiple PC's for one user?
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 07:23:12AM -0500, Scott Fitzgerald wrote:
> Instead of buying a commercian "muscle box" I think it would be more
> fun to instead link two pc's to serve one user, namely, myself.
> Thinking about this, I wanted to contact the group.
>
> Has anybody else done this? I would like to know so I could just
> follow in the footsteps of somebody who has experience.
My system is like what you are thinking of doing. My reasons for doing
it my way may differ from your reasons, but the result is not much
different. I have there debian boxes on a LAN (with 2 Macs and 1 Windoze).
Access to the Internet is via fixed wireless service that recommended a
D-Link DI604 'modem'.
>
> I would really like to have the repetitive and daemon like jobs run
> on the computer without the keyboard/screen/mouse. I wonder though
> because in debian exim and cron are in the "base system." Can a
> Debian system be run without these? Email in particular, is there a
> setting where I can tell the "lighter" system to use the SMTP server
> of the "heavier" system as a default, or do I need to run a lighter
> SMTP daemon or do I need to program exim for this somehow?
My division of 'tasks' is different:
One Debian box runs apt-cacher and not much else.
2nd is a 'compute engine' on which I run large simulations of biodiversity.
3rd is general purpose, on which I print, write email, surf the web, etc.
On the third I can do all sorts of things that are risky, like X windows.
The division of tasks is largely based on what tasks I feel are interesting
to investigate vs. tasks that I don't want to fail if I do something stupid.
(I do a lot of stupid things.)
>
> Can simpler and less secure things like telnet be configured to work
> only within the LAN? I know how to invoke SSH but is seems overkill
> for logging into a box next to the "lighter" box. any thoughts?
On my system, the D-link box does NAT. There is no special
compartmentalization for security purposes. Except for the compute engine,
all boxes are overkill, and they are all >5y old, so it is not possible
to find new boxes that are less overkill. Don't worry about overkill.
Do dumpster diving to get equipment. Anything that can be made to boot
is a candidate to fill some role.
My system is very much a work in progress. I like it, but I hesitate to
recommend it to anyone else, because it is so ad hoc. The big advantage
is that no matter what you do as your first mistake, you still have working
computers to help in fixing it. And working computers to look at to remind
you of what is present on a working computer (config file contents, etc.).
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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