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meep
04-07-2005, 06:33 PM
Just a quick question hopefully - I want to experiment with a node that boots directly on the network using a Win 2003 Server as its source.

This node must run FAD and FAD alone, using the same w2k3 server as its job source, even its think.exe executable source if possible.

Is there a recommended way of doing this with FAD in mind? Any info or suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,
Steve.

IronBits
04-07-2005, 07:47 PM
Windows way is very $pendy ...

Linux is the way to go, and there are many distros that support this...

I looked into the W$indows way before and found it very lacking and thousands of dollars was the way to tackle it :(

Slapped a cheap linux box together, and with a little help from Bok and PCZ, I had 12 nodes up and running in less than two days ;)

meep
04-08-2005, 03:36 AM
ATM I do not want to run a linux server, what type of software did you look at to run on a windows server environment?

IronBits
04-08-2005, 08:26 AM
That was like 3 years ago, Terminal Services I think was one... you could do a google search and find some hits I would think... good luck.

tpdooley
04-08-2005, 02:27 PM
While doing a search for "headless" "diskless" FaH (FaH's had a Linux client much longer than FaD has, so there's more data out there for FaH?), I've run across a link to a 2 or 3 year old page on setting up a network booting Windows installation for Seti. On that page, or others explaining why they went with Linux - there was mention that Win98 was the last M$ OS that could be properly run diskless. I haven't run across mention of a headless, diskless solution for Windows versions newer than Win98.

Most of the pages I've been reading through this past week state cheaper, slimmer, faster Linux installs - and convinced me that my future FaD server should follow iB's advice. Plus, I get to finally put these Linux .ISOs I've been downloading to use. :)

Good luck..

rsbriggs
04-08-2005, 03:27 PM
I tried for nearly a month to make M$ stuff work headless back during that period. Never did manage to get it figured out. OTH, five headless linux nodes came up just fine in a matter of a couple of days, and I could easily have added a new node in a matter of just a few minutes, at that point.

These days I run nearly all my nodes under XP with very small (2G) hard drives, cheap video cards or video on the MOBO. Some of the machines are running VNC, but I'm u7ninstalling that these days - I have 16 ports worth of KVM switches which covers all my x86 boxes.

Given that I can buy the hard drives for under $10, it's just seems easier, since I put all my boxen in cases anyway....

meep
04-08-2005, 04:54 PM
looking into it further this is not so simple. i am a big linux fan with a lot of experience, just done want another server, my 2k3 mini-itx box is running ISA very nicely which is something i want to stick with for the time being.

i am going to boot a customised ms xp pe image from a compact flash card in an ide -> cm flash adapter. that will be silent, low power but still allow me the use rdc mmc etc to manage to node.

MerePeer
04-10-2005, 07:35 AM
I was thinking about this and thinking maybe it would work as long as you didnt mind the nodes booting a linux image and assuming you are running your own dhcp server. The problem is that net nodes must get their (linux kernel) image from a TFTP (trival file transfer protocol) server and that needs to be running on Win2003 which doesnt come with one. So I googled and here's a site that has some instructions on setting up pxe nodes to boot from a win server, and gives you a link to the freeware tftp server. The other good link in there is how to build your kernel image. http://pxes.sourceforge.net/howtos/ms_only_environment/

Maybe if you build in Samba to those images, then after logging in on the netnode you'd be able to mount a win2003-shared drive with FAD on it and start it running?

[Edit: corrected URL typo ]

meep
04-10-2005, 09:06 AM
Nice, that looks good - bits and bobs are arriving early next week for me to try this on.

Will pass back info on how it goes and the setup etc.

IronBits
04-10-2005, 09:17 AM
Try this :)
http://diet-pc.sourceforge.net/windows/etherboot-w2k.html