Linux Terminal Server Project [1]

The Linux Terminal Server Project ( LTSP) is a configuration of Linux that allows you to connect lots of low-powered thin client terminals to a Linux server. The LTSP provides a simple way to utilise low cost workstations as either graphical or character-based terminals on a GNU/Linux server.

K12LTSP is based on RedHat Fedora Linux and the LTSP terminal server packages (see Section 7.1.1 for more detail). It’s easy to install and configure. It’s distributed under the GNU General Public License. That means it’s free and it’s based on Open Source software.

Once installed, K12LTSP lets you boot diskless workstations from an application server.

What is Thin Client Computing?
Thin client and fat client (also called “thick” or “rich” client) are mostly marketing terms for different configurations of computer. A thin client asks a central server to do most of its processing, and keeps as little hardware and software as possible on the workstation side. Ideally, the user of a thin client should have only a screen, keyboard, mouse and enough computing power to handle display and network communications — you don’t even need (or want) a hard drive. The less you have, the less there can go wrong.

A fat client does as much processing as possible itself and only passes data required for communications and storage on to the server. A standalone PC is the typical fat client with which everyone is familiar.

A thin client may be a software program executing on a generic PC, or it may be a hardware device, called a terminal, designed to provide only user input and display functions. Because old PCs (whether retired, written off, obsolete or just out of fashion) are easier to find than specialised thin client hardware, Edubuntu labs uses them as thin clients, with the appropriate software. Because they don’t do much work themselves, the hardware requirements for these “old” PCs are very basic. Since every client in a thin client network asks a central server to do its work, all the individual workstations look the same: they all share the same server, and they all behave exactly like the server would if you were using it directly.

In addition, although everyone who uses the lab can have their own computing environment stored on the server, with their own files, desktop, and so on, the individual workstations can’t get viruses or be misconfigured by curious learners — there simply isn’t anything to configure! The thin client doesn’t have enough brains to get confused.

This means that the lab computers are trivial to keep up and maintenance is restricted to the server in the back room.

Thin clients are cheaper and require less administration than fat clients. On the other hand, they tend to require far greater network bandwidth, as display data will probably need to be passed to the thin clients. They can’t do a single thing on their own — for each and every action, they need to talk to the server. This means that a server for a room full of thin clients must be much more capable than a server used by fat clients.

One of the advantages that this configuration entails, is that all the software resides on the server, and so you only have to upgrade it once. In a fat client configuration, every workstation has its own copies of the software, and so any upgrade needs to be rolled out to every workstation.

Drawbacks
Graphics-intensive applications such as games will not perform well, as all the display information will have to be pushed over the network by the server. This is hundreds of times slower than driving a local graphics card. Playing action games, however, is not a goal of the Edubuntu lab project.

Hardware
Minimum specifications for LTSP Client and Server

Server

• Memory The server should have 2GB RAM or more (512MB for the base system, and 50MB for each additional client). As long as you’re using it all up, more RAM means more speed (it doesn’t help to have RAM that you don’t use). Too little RAM will bring your server to a crawl as it starts swapping memory to the hard drive. If you run out of memory, performance will be unacceptable.
• Hard drive SCSI is faster than IDE: We’ve seen LTSP servers slow to a crawl when more than 10 clients are running from IDE drives. SCSI drives are better equipped to handle the multiple read/write requests.
• Network Your server will have at least one Ethernet card to create a private network ( 192.168.0.x). This card connects to a switch for terminals. If there is a school network to which you need to connect, or if the school has a internet connection via the server, it will have a second Ethernet card, which will get an IP address on the second network.

Clients

• Memory Client workstations should have at least 32MB of RAM. Clients aren’t that dependent on swap space for extra memory capacity, since memory usage on them is reasonably constant because they don’t execute applications: they only display them.
• Hard drive Client workstations should not have hard drives.
  Network Each client workstation should have one network card with a boot ROM to enable booting from the network.

DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) [2]

DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) is a free software, open source solution to managing the deployment of the GNU/Linux operating system across many clients. Imagine the time required to install GNU/Linux on 40, 30, or even 10 client machines individually! DRBL allows for the configuration all of your client computers by installing just one server machine.

DRBL provides a diskless or systemless environment for client machines. It works on Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS and SuSE. DRBL uses distributed hardware resources and makes it possible for clients to fully access local hardware. It also includes Clonezilla, a partitioning and disk cloning utility similar to Symantec Ghost®.

Peacefully coexists with other OS
DRBL uses PXE or etherboot, which is similar to Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), to boot the client machine. While LTSP is a centralized server, all the client machine users’ access the LTSP server to run their applications on it. The client’s keyboard and mouse are used to input whereas the client’s monitor is used to display the results. This is great when useing a thin client.[1]

The server requirements must be increased when more than 20 or 30 clients are being used. On the other hand, DRBL uses NFS and NIS to provide boot services to the client machines. In essence, the DRBL server is just a NFS and NIS server. All users from all client machines just access the DRBL server to request files or authentication.

Packages are loaded to the client machines and they use their own CPU and RAM for processing. A regular PC can be used as the DRBL server since it is only serving files and authenticating. The client machines, however, should be powerful enough to run the applications they need. Typical installations using DRBL to deploy the Linux classroom have around 30 to 40 clients.

///NOTE/// From LTSP 5.0, there is a fat client (diskless workstation, LowFat client) mode, it’s basically quite similar to DRBL

Save on hardware, budget, and maintenance fees

Hard drives are optional for a DRBL client. Actually, the hard drive is just another moving part that creates more noise and is susceptible to failure. If a hard drive is present, the client can be configured to use it as swap space while GNU/Linux is installed and configured on the centralized boot server.

A lot of time can be saved by configuring the client settings at the boot server when using the DRBL centralized boot environment. This gives the system administrator more control over what software configurations are running on each client.

Besides the diskless (fat/powerful) client mode provided by DRBL, DRBL provides other functions, such as:

(a) Clonezilla, the opensource clone system. It’s a server version of imaging tool, similar to Ghost server edition, True image or Rembo.By using Clonezilla, you can clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to 40 computers within 10 minutes via multicasting.

(b) Small Linux diskless soltion. DRBL provides Damn Small Linux (DSL), PuppyLinux… for clients. You can import those small Linux distributions and let client boot from PXE without hardisk, CD or USB flash drive.

(c) Diskless FreeDOS for clients.

(d) Diskless memtest for clients.

(e) Install GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Mandriva, SuSE…) for clients from network.
LTSP and DRBL each have their own benefits. Choose the one that is best suited to your needs.

What kind of server and client should I buy if I want to use DRBL ?

This depends on what kind of application and GNU/Linux distribution you want to run.
For the education environment, we recommend the following, but faster and newer equipment will always be better, especially if you want to run “moden” GNU/Linux distribution, such as Fedora 7 or Ubuntu 7.04 with OpenOffice 2.x or Firefox 2.x…:

• Server:
  • • x86 CPU at least 450 MHz
    • Memory at least 256 MB
    • Two or more fast ethernet network interface cards (NICs)
    • At least 10 GB HD space
• Client:
  • • x86 CPU at least 200 MHz
    • Memory at least 128 MB
    • One fast ethernet network interface cards

• Fast ethernet switch
  • • An ethernet hub is NOT acceptable. It’s too slow for network booting and NFS. A fast ethernet switch will reduce the collision domain and give you much smoother deployment. The fast ethernet switch should have enough ports for your clients and your server. You can find low cost 12 and 16-port fast ethernet switches just about anywhere. The 40+ port switches are nice but they typically cost more.

Since DRBL will work with any Pentium class hardware, you can start your PC cluster with just about any machine you have laying around. You can expand your cluster as your budget allows.

Where can I download the source codes ?

You can find all the source codes about DRBL/Clonezilla in http://free.nchc.org.tw/drbl-core/src/

Who is the developer of DRBL/Clonezilla?

DRBL and Clonezilla was developed by NCHC http://www.nchc.org.tw

What is NCHC ?

The National Center for High-Performance Computing is located in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more details, please visit the NCHC website at http://www.nchc.org.tw

What is CloneZilla?

Clonezilla, based on DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, and udpcast, allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla server edition. Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla server edition is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. This increases the clone efficiency. At the NCHC’s Classroom C, Clonezilla server edition was used to clone 41 computers simultaneously. It took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to all 41 computers via multicasting!

Features of Clonezilla[3]

• Free (GPL) Software.
• Filesystem supported: ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs of GNU/Linux, and FAT, NTFS of MS Windows. Therefore you can clone GNU/Linux or MS windows. For these file systems, only used blocks in partition are saved and restored. For unsupported file system, sector-to-sector copy is done by dd in Clonezilla.
• LVM2 (LVM version 1 is not) under GNU/Linux is supported.
• Multicast is supported in Clonezilla server edition, which is suitable for massively clone. You can also remotely use it to save or restore a bunch of computers if PXE and Wake-on-LAN are supported in your clients.
• Based on Partimage, ntfsclone and dd to clone partition. However, clonezilla, containing some other programs, can save and restore not only partitions, but also a whole disk.
• By using another free software drbl-winroll, which is also developed by us, the hostname, group, and SID of cloned MS windows machine can be automatically changed.

Editions
Clonezilla Live: Allows you to use CD/DVD or USB flash drive to boot and run clonezilla (Unicast only)
Clonezilla server edition: A DRBL server must first be set up in order to use Clonezilla to do massively clone (Both unicast and multicast are supported)

Which one is suitable for diskless gaming platform?

So Which one are the perfect candidate for Diskless Linux Gaming Server and Client? My answer is DRBL, why? Because DRBL client is a fat client that doesn’t rely too much hardware dependencies on Server like LTSP Client.

References :

[1] : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EdubuntuDocumentation/EdubuntuCookbook/ThinClient

[2] : http://drbl.sourceforge.net/about/

[3] : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Clonezilla_Server_Edition

Although this site was dedicated to the Open Source Softwares technologies for cyber cafe, but the document still got a relation to the FOSS technology. Perhaps this old instruction could give us some motivation to search and to develop new kind of methods to full utilizes open source softwares for cyber cafe purpose.

This old document just made me to remember my old days dealing with NT 4.0 / 2k Terminal Server running with Citrix Metaframe before I met Linux and LTSP, but right now I was falling in LOVE with DRBL.

So guys, I hope you all could give some suggestion or some ideas for us to share at OSSCC Community, and please have a look to the document below.

Creating Linux Diskless Client For Windows 2k/2003 Terminal Service
By Avinoam Levkovich

version 1.0

The company I work for has many old computers that are no longer suitable for the common application today ( try Running Office XP/2k on a P-I 100MHZ with 32MB Ram, and you will find out that this is not a pleasant experience ). We start looking for a solution that will save the money of buying new computers or Brand thin-clients. The goal was to use our old computer and still get good performance . We find the Linux solution just great for my goals.

we still use our old computer and the only investment we will have to make is buying the Windows 2K/2003 licenses and hardware .

The solution is actually an integration of the following Sub systems : LTSP, rdesktop and wilisystem , fortunately those systems are integrating quite naturally as you will see .

LTSP  : ( http://www.ltsp.org )

Is the backbone of all the system which provide the Linux terminal services for the diskless client. after installing LTSP it create the /opt/ltsp/i386 Directory.

this Directory will be the root system of our diskless clients. when booting the client it will get its kernel by tftp from LTSP and then it will mount /opt/ltsp/i386 as its root directory.

So after your client finish its boot process you will be logged to your LTSP Server and your file system will be the /opt/ltsp/i386 Directory. and then the Wilisystem start Working.

Rdesktop : (http://www.rdesktop.org )

Microsoft has developed a protocol called RDP which is used for the Terminal Server communication with the client.

The rdesktop package is an application that opens RDP Session with a Windows Server and by doing it , the Linux station become a Windows Terminal Client.

Wilisystem : ( http://www.wilisystem.com/ )

The Wilisystem is actually a patch for the LTSP server. what is does is make the connection to the Windows Terminal Server as easy as it can get.

The Wilisystem uses the rdesktop package and finish the Diskless client boot process with the Windows login screen. by doing this it make the LTSP Session invisible to the user who feel as if he is plugged directly to the Windows Server .

I must thank the wilisystem developers for a great job !

Rom-O-Matic : ( www.rom-o-matic.net )

This is where you get you boot image for you selected boot Device ( I used a floppy ). after specifying your Ethernet card model you can download your boot image.

Great implementation for a great idea.

please read the documentation from the Above web site’s. when you read the documentation you will discover all the options and benefits that you can get from this system and how to tune it to your needs.

what you need :

1. Linux Server , I used P-III 800 with 256MB RAM , With Red Hat 9.0 .

2. Diskless Client, I used a P-I 133MHZ , 32MB RAM, Ati – Rage XL (mach64 Family) Display Adaptor, with the intel 100/pro Ethernet .

3. Windows 2K/2003 Server With Terminal Services installed, configured and Running .
I used a P-4 1.7MHZ with 256MB RAM.

Create your diskless Client Environment:

The Diskless Client will be called ws009.

The Linux Server Side :

1. Find your Client ( ws009 ) Display card Model and his Ethernet mac address and write them down, you will need them later.

2. Download and install the Following packages from http://www.ltsp.org :

ltsp_core-X.X-X.rpm
ltsp_kerne-X.X-X.rpm
ltsp_x_core-X.X-X.rpm
ltsp_x_fonts-X.X-X.rpm

3. Install the rdesktop package from your RedHat CD or Download it form http://www.rdesktop.org/ .

4. Download the wilisystem patch from www.wilisystem.com , and install it .

5. Make sure that the packages for the Dhcp,Nfs,Tftp servers are installed.

6. Edit the file /opt/ltsp/install_scripts/CONFIG and change the settings to match your network Setting.

7. Run /opt/ltsp/templates/ltsp_initialize

# cd /opt/ltsp/templates/ltsp_initialize

# ./ltsp_initialize

8. Copy /etc/dhcpd.conf.example to /etc/dhcpd.conf and check that all the network numbers match your network Configuration.
Check the Mac address of your client and update the client configuration section ( host ws009 ) in the dhcpd.conf file.

Here is my /etc/dhcpd.conf :

ddns-update-style none;

default-lease-time 21600;
max-lease-time 21600;

option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
option routers 192.168.1.100;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.100;
option domain-name “my-domain.com”;
option root-path “192.168.1.100:/opt/ltsp/i386″;

option option-128 code 128 = string;
option option-129 code 129 = text;

shared-network WORKSTATIONS {
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
}
}

group {
use-host-decl-names on;
option log-servers 192.168.1.100;

host ws009 {
hardware ethernet 00:02:B3:2D:B0:D2;
fixed-address 192.168.1.113;
filename “/lts/vmlinuz-2.4.21-ltsp-1″;
}

}

9. Check /etc/exports. check that the IP numbers match your network Configuration. if everything is fine run :

# exportfs -r
# exportfs -a

10. Check that your client is properly listed in /etc/hosts. if your client name is w009 and your domain is my-domain.com you should add a line to your /etc/hosts file like :

192.168.1.112 ws009.my-domain.com ws009 this name (ws009) should be the same as the client name ( host ws009) that you configured in your dhcp.conf

12. Check /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf at the end of the file you should see the wilisystem configuration

Here is my Wilisystem Config , I added my remarks for the configuration part:

# Config part for the http://www.wilisystem.com
# example ws009 accessing the W2K/NT4 TSE
[ws009]
RDPSERVER = 192.168.1.3 # The ip of your W2K/NT4 Terminal Server
RUNLEVEL = 7 # runlevel 7 for wilisystem
SERVER = 192.168.1.100 # The IP of your LTSP server
XSERVER = auto # auto Discovery of your Display-card

# if your display card fail in the auto mod, you should download the proper ltsp_x336-XXX from www.ltsp.org and specify it like XSERVER = XF86_Mach64

X_MODE_0 = 1024×768 # The Resolution that you want, ( 1024×768 , 800×600 …)

X_COLOR_DEPTH = 15 # The color Depth .. i think win2k server only support 8 bit (256) color.

# the folowing line configure your mouse , check the Documentation page for more mouse type configuration : http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/

X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL = “PS/2″
X_MOUSE_DEVICE = “/dev/psaux”
X_MOUSE_RESOLUTION = 400
X_MOUSE_BUTTONS = 3

13. Make sure that the tftp service is enabled in the xinetd directory. run :

# service dhcpd restart
# service xinetd restart

# service nfs restart

The verify that the tftp server is running. run : netstat -anp | grep “:69 “

you should get something like : udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:69 0.0.0.0:* 799/xinetd

verify dhcp server by : netstat -anp | grep “:67 “
you should get something like : udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:67 0.0.0.0:* 2086/dhcpd

If dhcp is not working try restarting it .
If tftp is not working then you have to enable tftp in /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and restart it.

14. The default runlevel is specified in /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf is runlevel 5 BUT in the wilisystem section it override the default with its own Runlevel 7 ( if you take a look at /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/inittab you will see wilisystem Configuration for this runlevel.). if you exerience problems you should change it. try to load your client with one of the other clients configuration that you have in /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf , ws001 is a good start . remember to change your dhcp configuration and your hosts file to match your new host name. and choose the runlevel 3 . this will only load the ltsp system without trying to connect to the Windows Terminal Server.

then you will be able to debug the system.

The Diskless Client Side

1. Get your initial client boot kernel from : http://rom-o-matic.net/
To creat a boot floppy from the image you downloaded run :
# cat eb-5.0.10-yournic.lzdsk > /dev/fd0
where “eb-5.0.10-yournic.lzdsk” is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.

2. Reboot the client with the boot floppy that you created from the boot image.

After The boot process finished ,you should get the Windows logon screen

Problems
=====================

i experienced screen flickers when the X Server was trying to load and failes with message “no screens found ” , it was because the system didnt recognized my display adaptor , which is “mach64″ family , it was solved after I downloaded the proper Xfree 3.3 Drivers from the ltsp site. and I used the ” XSERVER = XF86_Mach64 ” in the lts.conf file.

Cybera – Cyber cafe administration
Cybera is an Internet cafe administration system. It works with prepaid cards or client accounts or in a post paid Self Service mode. Features include workstation control, user rights lockdown, accounting, stats and screen replication for CAI.
Visit Website | Download

Kfemate – The Open Source Cyber Coffee System
kfemate is pronunced in spanish (kfe=Coffee- mate= of “Checkmate in Chess”). With Kfemate you can admin your own Cyber-Cafe or Cyber, this Software is great, Easy of use, Secure, Fast, use MySQL, unlimited Pc’s, Portable, and Open Source. (Currently only Spanish)
Visit Website | Download

Anahaw Internet Cafe Timer
Anahaw Internet Cafe Timer is an internet cafe administration program. Basic function include client shutdown,logoff, restart and monitoring. It can handle up to 16 workstation. The server can be used also as stand alone (client need not be connected).
Visit Website | Download

Dharma Internet Cafe Management
A cross platform (Linux, Win32, Mac OsX) client-server internet cafe system written in RealBasic. Features include timing/billing, client management, membership, point of sale and reports. This project aim to ease administration of an internet cafe.
Visit Website | Download

CCL – Cafe Con Leche
Cafe Con Leche (CCL) are a crossplataform library (libccl) to make programs to manage internet cafes and program that does just that using libccl. This one I’ve use it greatly with LTSP, all you need is to configure your LTSP Client to be able running LOCAL APPS.
Visit Website | Download

PlayBilling – Web Based
PlayBilling is a webbased billing system for internet cafe and wireless hotspot provider mostly written in Java featured with: tariff management, prepaid, postpaid and discounts, user management and extensive reporting system
Visit Website | Download

BNC – Blue NetCafe Timer
BNCTimer is a client/server software,It’s a simple timer that you can control via a panel. It used in a cybercafe/internet cafe .
Visit Website | Download

ZybaCafe
ZybaCafe (formerly DireqCafe) is a full featured and complete Internet cafe management suite with support for multiple-platform clients. Thin-client Linux, fat-client Linux, and Windows are officially maintained. Extension is easily done through plugins.
Visit Website | Download

OutKafe
OutKafe is a next-generation Internet cafe management suite. It was forked from ZybaCafe with the aim of ultimately replacing all proprietary parts with completely free components. It includes a server-side administration suite as well as clients for managing time control on machines. A powerful plugin architecture allows for easy extensibility and integration with other tools such as accounting packages and CRM systems.
Visit Website | Download

Zeiberbude
Zeiberbude is a point of sales program for cyber-cafes. Its features include an independent timer for each computer in the cafe, user accounts for easier identification, drag ‘n’ drop of user information from one computer to another (if the user switch machines), and support for entering and billing for supplemental cost items (drinks, snacks, etc.). It also includes a configuration wizard to set cafe rates, including standard rates (per hour, half-hour and quater-hour), Happy Hour rates (start time, end time and cost allocations with the standard rate), club member rates, etc.
Visit Website | Download

CybOrg – Cyber Cafe Organizer
The Cybercafe Organizer (CybOrg) is a point of sales and administration system for Internet cafes (cyber cafes). It has a Web-based interface and is written in Perl using Template Toolkit and a RDBMS. It uses a client to block workstations, and is intended to be used on a (possibly Linux) server with Win32/Linux clients.It also provides a script to be used as the Active Desktop on Windows clients to display station’s status.
Visit Website | Download

OpenKiosk
OpenKiosk is a multi-platform kiosk management system for public terminals and kiosks. X11 and Windows clients are currently supported. Whether you are an Internet Cafe operator or a librarian, Openkiosk can make your life easier.
Visit Website | Download

And I’ve use Student Control Panel to start the cclcfox client, I know that i should be able to start the cclcfox client automatically but this for test purpose and I still have a week to delivery it to my client Residence Inn Cherating and I still looking for a better POS or cyber cafe management system.

In 2003 I’ve setup one LTSP server for to be used by eight lts client and using Zeiberbude as the Point Of Sales System for Resident Inn Cherating in Pahang. After several years, RIC asked me to redesign and restructure again their LTSP and their Business Center, and for this time I was replacing the Point Of Sales System by using CCLFOX instead of Zeiberbude with LOCALDEV enable, but before that successful of localdev, I had a pain of configuring it (localdev), and i don’t know why it’s when wrong and why it wont detect the local media of the client.

And I wait for a month for the updates of LTSP 4.1/4.2 and then all my problem solve. But I still not satisfy for the point of sales system, I am looking for a better POS system, I’d try Outkafe but I couldn’t find what I want from the system, and for now the only cyber cafe management system that could suit with my need is CCLFOX this one was great, and I hope I could study more about cclfox and ltsp manager, because I’ve found that both of these software is very useful to be as the perfect cybercafe management system. And guys.. If any of you out there got an experiences about cyber cafe with linux… Please Let Me Know And We Share With All Who’s Really Need For IT..