[wellylug] Networking and network filesystems

[Andrew Tarr]

On Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:41:54 +1300,
 Daniel Reurich <daniel at centurion.net.nz> wrote


> On Tue, 2011-03-08 at 00:18 +0100, Andrew Tarr wrote:
> > While I've had more than one computer at one time in my possession for
> > quite some time now, I've really only been using one at once for
> > reasons that are too boring to relate.  But now it looks like I'll be
> > able to have several working, which raises the question about how to
> > integrate them.
> 
> Depends on what you mean by "integrate them", and how far are you
> willing to go.  Are you going to set up a permanent machine to act as a
> server or just want peer to peer functionality?

I'm happy to contemplate either option. 

Speaking of peer to peer functionality, zeroconf/avahi looks interesting. 

> > Linux will be the primary operating system, but I do have a MacOS X
> > machine (which I'll probably try to set up to dual boot with Linux,
> > but MacOS X will need to access network filesystems etc).  Windows is
> > a distant secondary consideration - I don't really use it, but you
> > never know when you might end up with a windows machine on your
> > network (visiting friends, software that must be used that only works
> > on Windows, etc).
> 
> What do you mean by network filesystems?  Shared filesystem/home
> directories or just peer to peer access with minimal/no authentication.

Again, I'd contemplate either option.  I suppose the later involves a security risk, but it's more important that the front door be locked and the windows shut than all the interior doors are locked and shut too, right? 

As far as shared home directories go, I'm not sure I want to take that step.  Different machines could have different versions of different software on them, making the dotfiles problematic. 

> > Until now, I've coped with DHCP (with my ADSL router thingy acting as
> > the server) and SCP/rsync for the odd times when I've wanted to copy
> > things between computers, but I don't want to do that forever. 
> 
> It's either your router doing it or you setup some sort of permanent
> server to do that for you.

It's not DHCP I don't want to do forever.  It's typing 'rsync me at 314.159.265.358:\usr\me\somedir\some/ file/ I / want .' every time I want a file that I don't particularly enjoy. 

On this note, Ubuntu does Samba out of the box (which I already knew) but I've recently learnt Nautilus has an sftp plugin.  sftp also looks like it can be mounted using fuse. 

> > The first question is about name resolution.  As the number of hosts
> > will be quite small, /etc/hosts would probably work for the linux
> > boxes, but maybe it's just worth setting up a DNS server?  That way,
> > presumably there won't be any problems with other operating systems,
> > especially as I can have DHCP set up an appropriate DNS entry. 
> > 
> Check to see if you router doesn't already provide this functionality.
> If it doesn't then your needing to set up some form of dns service on a
> server, and having that handle and forward/cache requests for your
> network.  You'll also need to get your dhcp service (be that your adsl
> router or a service you've set up) to tell the dhcp clients where to
> find your new dns server.

Good point. I'd forgotten that routers sometimes can do this. There might be some new network hardware in my future anyway - it's an old DSE ADSL 1 router, no wireless.  This seems like a good thing for it to do, especially if it's handling wireless clients too. 

> > Also on the topic of name resolution, obviously if I use /etc/hosts I
> > need static IPs.  Is it worth considering using static IPs if I use
> > DNS, or is it just easier to use DHCP? The number of computers is
> > small, so I don't mind fiddling around a bit to set-up whatever once -
> > I'm probably more interested in what's got less on-going maintenance. 
> > 
> Static IP's are ok for servers but you'll still want dhcp/dns setup for
> your portable clients and for guest access.
> 
> > Final thing related to name resolution - is it worth looking into
> > setting up a cacheing DNS? 
> 
> Depends on what you want.  For 1 or 2 pc's you probably wouldn't notice
> the difference, but if youv'e got a few more and mail servers etc it
> would be well worth the time invested.
> 


> For windows Samba 3 does a fairly good job for clients up to Windows XP.
> Windows Vista and Windows 7 are a little more fussy and may require more
> tweaking of the server, and Windows 7 also needs a registry tweak to
> atleast do domain authentication (not sure about whether this required
> for peer to peer with Pre Vista desktops).  For Mac OSX, if your running
> a server with samba you may like to install Netatalk to get better
> performance, compatibility and codepage support, but it's not essential.

It's a bit disappointing to hear that Windows 7 won't work out of the box with Samba, but it won't affect me in the immediate future.  Might affect visiting friends, though, I suppose. Looks like I'd have to give them the option of installing an NFS client or patching the registry...

>  
> > The final topic is how to handle users and permissions across the
> > network.  As it's just me, it seems to work so long as I set myself up
> > as the first user with the same username everywhere, but perhaps I
> > should consider something cleverer? One issue here might be restoring
> > things from backups with the correct permissions. 
> > 
> Openldap and sounds way over the top for your scenario, but it is going
> to provide the easiest path to centralized authentication.  Kerberos
> might be a go.
> 

It would be nice to be able to sync passwords at a minimum, and I don't need scalability. 

-Andrew. 


-- 
Schon gehört? GMX hat einen genialen Phishing-Filter in die
Toolbar eingebaut! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/toolbar