[PLUG] samba and profiles...

[Michael Robinson]

On Thursday 24 April 2003 09:01 am, you wrote:
> Another approach would be to use your NIC's PXE (Preboot eXecution
> Environment), if it has such, or netboot see the HOWTO at
>
> http://cui.unige.ch/info/pc/remote-boot/howto.html
>
> I know the title says it's for Linux remote booting, but there's info on
> dos/windows booting and backup options there, too.
>
> -djp
> http://folding.stanford.edu - the brain you save may be your own!
>
Interesting information though it looks more complicated than I want
to deal with if I try and set remote boot Windows up for Windows users
to be able to backup their own systems.  I don't want to dabble in the
Windows registry without professional training and the less software
I have to pick up from some obscure site the better off I am.  I have
etherboot working and I have made Tom's root boot netbootable
using etherboot.  Same is true for a dos and 98 boot disk where I
have added a few tools I'd put on a bootdisk intended for creating
partitions to install these operating systems to.
  
What I want to know is how to take a no package group selected custom
install of Redhat 7.2 and fix it for network boot.  This means that things 
like hard drive testing and temp directories created during bootup as well
as the kernel need to be looked at.  The home directory should be an area
on a backup dump disk on the server whereas the temp directories should
either be ram disks on the client machine or a file on the server side.  This
system should have no mail anything, has anyone ever taken the mail
facilities out of Linux entirely?  Linux runs most everything hardware wise
where the time I could spend on PXE would be far better spent learning
about Linux.  I have a partition on my workstation to develop this custom
system on.  The only reason for 7.2 is that it has the 2.4 series kernel
and recent hardware device support though any modern Linux distribution 
where programmability is the key could be chosen.  Redhat 6.2 could be
good enough, though 7.2 is easier to install with extras left out and is
newer.

I've lost interest in netbooting Windows and Dos.  PXE seems necessary
to be able to support the network cards out there, but looking at it it 
becomes obvious why Linux is so much better for networking applications as 
Linux is not designed with rigid assumptions about a local hard disk, etc.
and the kernel itself is largely used to get the various hardware devices
going  It looks a lot easier to prepare Linux for netbooting than Dos/Windows
where dos/windows don't look easy enough to be worthwhile and 
getting a usable Linux system available via netboot is more useful to 
me.

A netbooted Linux system with samba client support, tar, bzip2, 
dd, dump, restore, broad filesystem support, and md5 summing 
for example is a good start.  I can and have created netbootable 
images of 98 and dos for formatting and creating local partitions 
( though I need password protection through a third party program
perhaps run by autoexec.bat or a pre booted Linux system that
has to authenticate you to the server before allowing network boot
of 98 and Dos systems. )  If I could come up with a Linux system
that just has the ability to authenticate users to a server and trigger
a second network boot I would not worry about passwords after
that in dos, windows, or further Linux network booted systems.

If I can avoid getting away from etherboot that is preferred because
that makes the client side so easy.

   --  Michael C. Robinson