Creating an LTSP Server on Linux Mint

I wanted to try this out for ages but somehow I have never done it. Last weekend I decided to give it a go and to create an LTSP server and a thin client that'll start over PXE with no disk, floppy, USB stick or CD/DVD. It turned out to be quite simple but a few quirks made me wonder for a bit what the hell is going on. Here's a log of those things.

DHCP starts, TFTP from a live CD works but TFTP from PXE times out

That happens when using NAT network in VirtualBox. They are broken. Use 2 cards on the server, one in whatever mode you want, that will connect to the internet (I use bridged or NAT - both work fine) and for the second card use an internal network.

The server needs to have them properly configured. Leave the first one that's bridged to get its config using DHCP and the second one configure to have a static IP address (e.g. 192.168.67.2), netmask of 255.255.255.0 and NOTHING ELSE. For the client setup just one network card connected to internal network (same as for the server) and leave everything else be.

By the way, I used 2 different types of virtual network cards: Intel for the bridged one and AMD for internal network. The AMD card starts faster over DHCP :)

The /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf file needs to be updated accordingly. For the 192.168.67.0 network I have configured mine as follows:

authoritative;

subnet 192.168.67.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    range 192.168.67.20 192.168.67.250;
    option domain-name "example.org";
    option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8;
    option broadcast-address 192.168.67.255;
    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";
    }
}

I have removed option routers ... and next-server [...] options because they are not necessary as I am not connecting the client to Internet (everything runs on the server) and I am running TFTP on the same host with DHCP server.

On Linux Mint "Reached target Graphical Interface." but nothing happens

This one is easy but not obvious if you have done LTSP on Ubuntu. After the initial creation of image (ltsp-build-client [...]) install virtualbox' X11 guest driver like so:

$ sudo ltsp-chroot -p -d apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11

And then update the image as usual:

$ sudo ltsp-update-image

On Ubuntu-based servers those drivers get installed automatically. Very weird...

Fucked up client display

If you will see a display that is sort of hacked in half horizontally and then vertically with things looking like it's Picasso's fantasy then your client has either too much graphical memory, 3D acceleration enabled or too few MBs of RAM. I set my client VM to have 1GB RAM, 128MB video RAM and 3D acceleration enabled but your mileage might vary. Before you do anything just add RAM - that should help

The client started - what's the username and password?

This one is really tricky if you don't know what LTSP is all about. Essentially LTSP client is Linux with X11 and SSH client bound to your server. So whenever you are logging in use the same account as on server. If you need more users - add them to the server. And remember: all apps are not running on the client - they run on the server! This is why a Raspberry Pi works great as an LTSP client. I love it!

I have checked Linux Mint XFCE, Ubuntu 16.04.1, LUbuntu, Ubuntu Mate - they all work great. If you're a RedHat/Fedora fan you're on your own.

Happy LTSPing!