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List:       comedi
Subject:    Network boot & comedi
From:       Tim Holy <holy () pcg ! wustl ! edu>
Date:       2003-06-20 15:23:59
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Hello,

In my lab we currently have 3 Linux data acquisition machines, plus a few 
Linux desktops. Because these machines have been installed at different 
times, lab-wide there are 3 different distributions (if you count versions), 
each has a different kernel, comedi version, etc.. By the end of the year, 
several of the machines will unfortunately have reached their end-of-life 
support as far as security patches from the distributor. For these reasons, 
I'm exploring the possibility of setting up single a Debian system for 
network booting (PXE).

I'm wondering whether anyone on this list has any experience and/or advice 
about whether this is a good or bad idea. From the bit of reading I've done 
so far, one problem seems to be that:
1. It's nice to make /root available read-only, so that a single configuration 
can be shared among clients;
2. But if the hardware is different, I'll apparently have trouble with a 
single shared /dev filesystem. It's recommended 
(http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-10/netbooting_06.html) that one uses devfs to 
handle the hardware differences between machines. Comedi supports /dev but 
not /devfs, however.

While I have no experience in these matters, it seems that it should be simple 
to put /dev (and /var, /tmp, and anything else?) on each of the local 
harddrives, and solve the hardware differences that way. Am I wrong?

And a couple of points that may be off-topic for this list, but I mention them 
in case they might have implications for comedi:
1. Will NFS file locking (http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-10/netbooting_07.html) 
be an issue I need to worry about? Despite trying to find information in man 
pages and from HOWTOs on the web, I don't really understand what locking is, 
or when it would be a problem.
2. I notice that a lot of sites recommend using a ram disk for /var, but I 
don't see why this would be better than the local harddrive.

Many thanks,
--Tim Holy


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