How to install LTSP on ubuntu 9.04

LTSP was available as an install option in Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 from the alternate install CD . However I am unable to find it on the Jaunty CD. So, here is a quick how to on installing LTSP on ubuntu 9.04.

1) Install Ubuntu 9.04 desktop
You can follow the default documentation on Ubuntu site.

2) Set up a static IP on the system
You can refer to this post for setting up static IP on Jaunty.

3) Install dhcp3 server

$ sudo apt-get install dhcp3-server

You may also refer to this post for some more details on dhcp3 installation on Ubuntu 9.04.

4) Install open ssh server

$ sudo apt-get install open-sshserver

Ltsp uses ssh to tunnel X to the client machines.

5) Install ltsp

$ sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone

This will download all the package needed for building LTSP.

6) Edit /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf to suit your IP requirement

The default dhcp3-server configuration file is in /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. However when ltsp was installed it created a new config file for dhcp3 under /etc/ltsp/dhcp3.conf. You have to edit this dhcp3.conf to suit your IP requirements.

My dhcpd.conf looks like this. You can use this as a starting point.

Code:

 # Default LTSP dhcpd.conf config file.

#



authoritative;



subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

  range 192.168.0.20 192.168.0.250;

  option domain-name "example.com";

  option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;

  option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;

  option routers 192.168.0.1;

#    next-server 192.168.0.1;

#    get-lease-hostnames true;

  option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

  option root-path "/opt/ltsp/i386";

  if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" {

      filename "/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.0";

  } else {

      filename "/ltsp/i386/nbi.img";

  }

}

7) Run LTSP build client

$ sudo ltsp-build-client

This command will build the ltsp environment under /opt/ltsp and build the squashfs image for clients.

8) Enable pxe boot on a client machine and test the set-up.

Trouble shooting

1) If your client boots up and says "You are not authorised to connect to server" , run the following.
$sudo ltsp-update-sshkeys
$sudo ltsp-update-image

2) If you change the IP address of the server, run the same commands again, ie

$sudo ltsp-update-sshkeys
$sudo ltsp-update-image