Can't boot thin clients

[Jay Perez]

Hi Rehan,

I'm also pretty new to Linux but recently set up an Edubuntu server and several clients without having to make any changes to the server.  Had some problems with older PCs getting them to boot off the network using PXE but with help from various forums, got that working too.

I can't tell from the info you posted but it looks like you might only have one network card in your server and/or you still have your wireless router set up as a DHCP server.

Edubuntu seems to work out of the box if you have two network cards installed in it when you install the O/S and you don't have another DHCP server (your router) active at the same time on the same subnet.

I started out by setting it up as a stand-alone network with just two PCs on the network that were connected by a switch.  The software correctly configured the two network cards without me having to do anything. In fact, except for figuring out how to get the old PCs I was using to boot off the network, I didn't have to change or configure anything. (YET ...) At this point, the Edubuntu network was not connected to the Internet or my home network.

Once I had all this working I plugged the ETH0 network card to an open port on my router (just a regular port like you plug any computer into) and now the server and all clients had access to the Internet.  They could also see my home network and the computers on my home network could see the Edubuntu server.

However, although the computers could see each other, that was about all I could do between the two subnets. Pretty sure there's a way to do other stuff across the subnets like share printers but I don't have the Linux skills to get it to work.

Except for the two subnet issue this setup worked perfectly.

There was bigger downside to this configuration for me.

With the two subnets, the only PCs that you could boot off the Edubuntu server were the ones physically plugged into that subnet.  I want to be able to have any computer in the house able to boot off the network (this is optional during boot-up) or just boot up normally in my other O/S.

Haven't figured that out yet ...

I have a hand drawn sketch of two different ways I had all the servers/routers/switches/computers connected.  I can send you a .jpg of it if you'd like. (both ways worked but had different advantages or limitations)

Good luck and don't give up as it is pretty kool once you get it running !

Jay
Rochester, NY

Please note: message attached

Hi,
Its kind of embarrasing, and I have been racking my brains over for two days now ! But I can't seem to connect a Thin client ( PXE ) to boot from an edubuntu server !
 
I got the dhcp and tfpt workign on the server !
 
I see the dhcp giving the IP but the Client says
PXE-T01 : file not found
PXE-E3B: TFTP Error - File not found !
 
I guess you figured it out that i am a newbie to linux !
I have supposedly used all kind of ways to put the pxelinux.0 in all sorts of places !
i think I have an error with my dhcp.conf !
 
This Edubuntu was supposed to work out of the box !
 
And the help available is just not doing the trick !
 
I mean just imagine i have still not been able to connect a single client !
 
I am using AMDs !
 
The dhcp.conf is as follows:
 
INTERFACES=eth1
 
authoritative;
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  range 192.168.0.20 192.168.0.30;
  option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
  option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;
  option routers 192.168.0.1;
  option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
  if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" {
    filename "/ltsp/amd64/pxelinux.0";
  }
  else{
    filename "/ltsp/amd64/pxelinux.0";
  }
  option root-path "192.168.0.27:/opt/ltsp/amd64";
}
I have a LinkSys Wireless Gateway 54G whose IP is 192.168.0.1
and the edubuntu server's IP is 192.168.0.27
 
Very frustrating !