I need a better solution than NFS

I have built a machine that I want to use for logins only.

It is an ancient P5A K6-2 450 MHz ASUS, and is murder to set up. All it
has installed in the slots is one lan card and one old 14.4 modem (not
used).

I have set up an admin account which is the only real home directory on
the machine, and 10 other empty (home) directories, which are mounted to
another machine by NFS.

from /etc/fstab
<snip>
mainmachine:/home/username /home/username nfs rsize=8192,nosuid,soft 0 0
<snip>

It works, but it is painfully slow. I have ordered new cat-6 cables, and
the main machine is capable of high speed.

Everything that I have read on the subject tells me that pretty much any
old machine which is P3 or better will do. The ASUS that I am using is
an old AMD K2-6 450. It is a budget board, and is missing the sound chips.

Both machines have Mandriva 2006 installed, and the system works, but
the problem is that the delay on the login machine is not acceptable.

I have been experimenting with using xhost rather than nfs, but I can't
seem to find a good howto that makes sense. IOW, one source lists the
main machine as the server and another lists the login machine as the
server. I have found that playing around with DISPLAY can result in a
forced reboot, so I'd rather have some competent information.

Here is how I am set up. I have Mandriva 2006 and Windows 2000 working
in conjunction on a single lan, with three permanent and any number of
other client machines sharing files and Internet connections. The Linux
machine supplies the Internet connection through shorewall. The Windows
2000 machine takes care of any visiting microsoft products. Mac is
untried. All are assigned static IP numbers (dhcp is not used here).

I want all users to be able to login from a central workstation, and use
that workstation as though they were in front of the machine in which
their real home directory resides. I want to set up a guest account as
well, but guests do not exist here yet.

NFS is too slow, and some of the links don't work without root login
(apache home page, links to websites, certain programs that require a
local save, etc.). I really don't understand xhost because of the
conflicting instructions that I have found, so, for starters, is anyone
willing to give me a lead?

Thank you,

Michael

--
RLU #352695
35.14N - 101.50W

Bad idea to use M$ to masquerade, even dumber to use it in conjunction with
shorewall. So turn off shorewall and use iptables instead.

You should be using your Mandriva box with two NIC's as a firewall. One
machine one NIC and shorewall...Man what a disaster.

Try tail -f /var/log/messages and
tail -f /var/log/auth.log to see what's (not) happening


> Here is how I am set up. I have Mandriva 2006 and Windows 2000 working
> in conjunction on a single lan, with three permanent and any number of
> other client machines sharing files and Internet connections. The Linux
> machine supplies the Internet connection through shorewall. The Windows
> 2000 machine takes care of any visiting microsoft products. Mac is
> untried. All are assigned static IP numbers (dhcp is not used here).

You need DHCP if you're masquerading else how to masq numbers get assigned.

You don't say how your gateway connects to internetland.


>
> I want all users to be able to login from a central workstation, and use
> that workstation as though they were in front of the machine in which
> their real home directory resides. I want to set up a guest account as
> well, but guests do not exist here yet.
>
> NFS is too slow, and some of the links don't work without root login
> (apache home page, links to websites, certain programs that require a
> local save, etc.). I really don't understand xhost because of the
> conflicting instructions that I have found, so, for starters, is anyone
> willing to give me a lead?

Windows doesn't understand NFS.

What happens when you...
/etc/rc.d/init.d/shorewall stop

Dump the M$ box!!! Oh yes, don't forget that you should be running xinetd
even though you don't have an X GUI in front of you.



--
Regards,
Peter.
http://www.pelicom.net.nz

Peter Lowrie <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>Bad idea to use M$ to masquerade, even dumber to use it in conjunction with
>shorewall. So turn off shorewall and use iptables instead.

???? shorewall IS a front end to iptables.


>You should be using your Mandriva box with two NIC's as a firewall. One
>machine one NIC and shorewall...Man what a disaster.

Do you know what you are talking about?


>Try tail -f /var/log/messages and
>tail -f /var/log/auth.log to see what's (not) happening


>> Here is how I am set up. I have Mandriva 2006 and Windows 2000 working
>> in conjunction on a single lan, with three permanent and any number of
>> other client machines sharing files and Internet connections. The Linux
>> machine supplies the Internet connection through shorewall. The Windows
>> 2000 machine takes care of any visiting microsoft products. Mac is
>> untried. All are assigned static IP numbers (dhcp is not used here).

>You need DHCP if you're masquerading else how to masq numbers get assigned.

Absolute nonesense. NAT has absolutely nothing to do with DHCP. NAT remaps
the port numbers, DHCP assigns IP addresses.


>You don't say how your gateway connects to internetland.

He doesn't.



>>
>> I want all users to be able to login from a central workstation, and use
>> that workstation as though they were in front of the machine in which
>> their real home directory resides. I want to set up a guest account as
>> well, but guests do not exist here yet.

For Linux machines, use nfs, for windows machines use samba

>>
>> NFS is too slow, and some of the links don't work without root login
>> (apache home page, links to websites, certain programs that require a
>> local save, etc.). I really don't understand xhost because of the
>> conflicting instructions that I have found, so, for starters, is anyone
>> willing to give me a lead?

NFS is slow? It runs at the speed of the ethernet connection.

xhost has nothing to do with what you are trying to do.
Also we have no idea what your statement about root login refers to. Be
specific.
Note that if you are going to use nfs, you must make sure that your uses
have the same userid (user number) on the various machines.

Note that web pages/browsing has nothing to do with nfs.




>Windows doesn't understand NFS.

Yes, they do not. Write to them.
Use samba instead.



>What happens when you...
>/etc/rc.d/init.d/shorewall stop

>Dump the M$ box!!! Oh yes, don't forget that you should be running xinetd
>even though you don't have an X GUI in front of you.

Unruh wrote:
> ???? shorewall IS a front end to iptables.

....and it's a piece of s__t.


> Peter Lowrie <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>>Bad idea to use M$ to masquerade, even dumber to use it in conjunction
with
>>shorewall. So turn off shorewall and use iptables instead.
>

>
>
>>You should be using your Mandriva box with two NIC's as a firewall. One
>>machine one NIC and shorewall...Man what a disaster.
>
> Do you know what you are talking about?
>
>
>>Try tail -f /var/log/messages and
>>tail -f /var/log/auth.log to see what's (not) happening
>
>
>>> Here is how I am set up. I have Mandriva 2006 and Windows 2000 working
>>> in conjunction on a single lan, with three permanent and any number of
>>> other client machines sharing files and Internet connections. The Linux
>>> machine supplies the Internet connection through shorewall. The Windows
>>> 2000 machine takes care of any visiting microsoft products. Mac is
>>> untried. All are assigned static IP numbers (dhcp is not used here).
>
>>You need DHCP if you're masquerading else how to masq numbers get
assigned.
>
> Absolute nonesense. NAT has absolutely nothing to do with DHCP. NAT remaps
> the port numbers, DHCP assigns IP addresses.
>
>
>>You don't say how your gateway connects to internetland.
>
> He doesn't.
>
>
>
>>>
>>> I want all users to be able to login from a central workstation, and use
>>> that workstation as though they were in front of the machine in which
>>> their real home directory resides. I want to set up a guest account as
>>> well, but guests do not exist here yet.
>
> For Linux machines, use nfs, for windows machines use samba
>
>>>
>>> NFS is too slow, and some of the links don't work without root login
>>> (apache home page, links to websites, certain programs that require a
>>> local save, etc.). I really don't understand xhost because of the
>>> conflicting instructions that I have found, so, for starters, is anyone
>>> willing to give me a lead?
>
> NFS is slow? It runs at the speed of the ethernet connection.
>
> xhost has nothing to do with what you are trying to do.
> Also we have no idea what your statement about root login refers to. Be
> specific.
> Note that if you are going to use nfs, you must make sure that your uses
> have the same userid (user number) on the various machines.
>
> Note that web pages/browsing has nothing to do with nfs.
>
>
>
>
>>Windows doesn't understand NFS.
>
> Yes, they do not. Write to them.
> Use samba instead.
>
>
>
>>What happens when you...
>>/etc/rc.d/init.d/shorewall stop
>
>>Dump the M$ box!!! Oh yes, don't forget that you should be running xinetd
>>even though you don't have an X GUI in front of you.

--
Regards,
Peter.
http://www.pelicom.net.nz

Peter Lowrie <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
[...other misinformation deleted...]

> Dump the M$ box!!! Oh yes, don't forget that you should be running xinetd
> even though you don't have an X GUI in front of you.

What on earth do you think xinetd has got to do with an X GUI? Oh,
apart from the letter 'x', of course.

Chris