Package: ltsp-server Version: 0.99debian11 Severity: normal I am trying to use NBD swap to compensate for a client with little memory.
Following the brief instructions in the /usr/share/doc/ltsp-server/swap file, I find that when the client crashes, the two swap processes on the server: nobody 15730 4777 0 17:20 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/nbdswapd nobody 15739 15730 0 17:20 ? 00:00:00 /bin/nbd-server as well as the swap file itself are left lying around. If the client is rebooted, new processes and a new swap file are used. If this process repeats, there gets to be a lot of these dead processes and swap files. I explored adding options to /etc/ltsp/nbdswapd.conf: NBD_SERVER_OPTS="-a 300" Of course, a longer time can be used. This does kill the nbd-server and shell script process, as well as delete the swap file. However, the system administrator is left trying to figure out how long to set the time. By experimentation, if the system is left idle for longer than the set time, the swap file will close and the client will be in a bad situation. So one would have to set this time very long (days or weeks), and of course, that would defeat the whole purpose of the setting. Also, no matter how long it's set for, it seems that Linux won't necessarily use swap unless it needs it, and since the goal is that it's almost never needed for an LTSP application, a timeout is not a good solution. I will experiment with the latter half of the "swap" instruction file, where the swap daemon is tied to an IP address. This seems more likely to work. But why couldn't the shell script use a similar technique (based on IP address or something like that). It seems that the first- suggested approach is problematic and shouldn't be recommended, or the script should work differently. Sorry for tacking other issues onto this, but also noticed along the way is that the package puts it's main ltsp.conf configuration file in /etc (no subdirectory) which is legal, but when the user wants to configure nbdswapd, they must create an /etc/ltsp directory and add a new config file there. I suggest having the ltsp-server package create /etc/ltsp from the start and drop it's ltsp.conf file there. -- Package-specific info: packages in chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386 ii initramfs-tools 0.85g tools for generating an initramfs ii ldm 0.99debian11 LTSP display manager ii ltsp-client 0.99debian11 LTSP client environment -- System Information: Debian Release: 4.0 APT prefers stable APT policy: (500, 'stable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1) Versions of packages ltsp-server depends on: ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.11 Debian configuration management sy ii debconf-utils 1.5.11 debconf utilities ii debootstrap 0.3.3.2 Bootstrap a basic Debian system ii esound-clients 0.2.36-3 Enlightened Sound Daemon - clients ii gettext-base 0.16.1-1 GNU Internationalization utilities ii iproute 20061002-3 Professional tools to control the ii lsb-release 3.1-23.1 Linux Standard Base version report ii nfs-kernel-server 1:1.0.10-6 Kernel NFS server support ii openbsd-inetd [inet-superse 0.20050402-6 The OpenBSD Internet Superserver ii openssh-client 1:4.3p2-9 Secure shell client, an rlogin/rsh ii python 2.4.4-2 An interactive high-level object-o ii ssh 1:4.3p2-9 Secure shell client and server (tr ii tcpd 7.6.dbs-13 Wietse Venema's TCP wrapper utilit ii tftpd-hpa 0.43-1.1 HPA's tftp server ii update-inetd 4.27-0.5 inetd.conf updater Versions of packages ltsp-server recommends: ii nbd-server 1:2.8.7-4 the Network Block Device server ii openssh-server 1:4.3p2-9 Secure shell server, an rshd repla ii ssh 1:4.3p2-9 Secure shell client and server (tr -- debconf information excluded -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
