home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!swillden
- From: swillden@news.ccutah.edu (Shawn Willden)
- Subject: NeXT networking advice wanted...
- Message-ID: <1993Jan7.044109.13031@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
- Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu
- Organization: University of Utah Computer Center
- X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
- Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 04:41:09 GMT
- Lines: 65
-
- Hi all,
-
- The math dept. at Weber State University recently acquired 10
- colorstations and a mono cube (all turbos running 3.0, of course).
- Each of the 'stations has the basic 250MB HD (meaning the
- stripped-down OS with no Developer's stuff, Webster's, etc.) but the
- cube has a 1.4 GB HD (and the full release). With ~10 mins. work I
- had the machines networked and running great but then I found myself
- faced with some difficult choices.
-
- I would like to make all the stuff on the cube available to
- all of the stations. Some options are:
-
- 1) NFSmount the cube's /NextApps, /NextDeveloper, /NextLibrary
- , /LocalApps and /LocalLibrary under /Net on the clients and
- then add the /Net/... directories to the paths (anybody know
- off the top of their heads how to make the WorkSpace Manager
- know about those directories? I can look it up, but if you
- happen to know...). One problem with this is that PB looks in
- /usr/lib for some stuff to build, so I'd probably have to
- mount the cube's /usr/lib over the clients. Oh, and I also
- have to make /usr/man a link to /Net/NextLibrary/... to get
- man pages (or tell man where to look).
-
- 2) NFSmount the cube's directories listed above over the top
- of the corresponding directories on the stations (and probably
- remove the local copies). This has the disadvantage that the
- Apps we *want* to place on the local hard drives will have to
- be placed in some folder other than /LocalApps because the
- local /LocalApps is hidden. Once again, it is necessary to
- tell the WS manager to look in the new directories.
-
- 3) Netboot the clients. I *believe* (not having done it or
- even read about it extensively) that this will mount the
- cube's HD as the root of the local file system and will create
- a /<something> subdirectory and mount the local HD there.
- Again, it is necessary to tell the WS manager about the new
- directories where it can expect to find apps.
-
- Please tell me about any other options you can think of.
-
- Questions:
-
- 1) In your experience, what is the best was to solve my
- problem?
-
- 2) In all of the above options network usage is going to be
- fairly heavy. How much of a problem is this likely to pose?
- How about option 3 (netbooting)?
-
- 3) In all cases, I'm going to need to add to the list of
- directories the WS manager expects to find apps in. I assume
- that some dwrite is necessary to make this change. Is there a
- way I can make the change global so I don't have to do it for
- every user?
-
-
- Thanks in advance. Post or e-mail your replies, please. E-mail
- preferred unless you really think everyone wants to hear it.
-
- Shawn.
-
- --
- Shawn Willden
- swillden@icarus.weber.edu
-