[Drbl-user] DRBL SSI - can local /usr be mounted ?

[Petri J. <Pet...@nw...>]

Dear listmembers

We are setting up DRBL and clonezilla to run a computer lab of 30 PCs.
Clonezilla is a great tool and we are very pleased.

Everything seems to be working (see below), but the DRBL option gives
very slow performance. I think the network gets overloaded because
of all the nfs mounts.
Now I am thinking that we can use a local disk partition for /usr
when booting DRBL over the network. 
Is this an option with the current DRBL ?

If not, please comment on the following plan:
1- Create a new partition (sda8 = 12GB) on one of the clients
2- do rsync -a from the server's /usr into this partition
3- use clonezilla to save this partition as an image onto the server
4- use clonezilla to restore this partition to all clients
5- copy and modify the DRBL client fstab to mount /usr locally instead of nfs
6- add an extra entry to the DRBL grub menu to mount /usr locally when booting
7- if new packages are installed on the server then the local /usr must be updated as well
Can this be done with a command to rsync /usr after booting?

Steps 1-4 above is easy, but I need help with 5-7. 
Which files on the server should be modified?
Perhaps somewhere in /tftpboot ... ?
Is there another, more elegant solution ?

Any help or comments will be appreciated.

-------------------------
Description of the lab setup:

The PCs are fat clients (HP DX7400 with 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo,
2GB RAM, 160GB SATA) set up to do dualboot / multiboot: 
  Primary boot is Network - PXE. This gives DRBL GRUB menu
   with options: 1) DRBL SSI  (Ubuntu as installed on server), 
2) DSL - running in RAM after tftpboot, 
3) Local OS

 When Local OS is selected the local hard disk (160GB) is used
 and another grub menu gives the choice of:
    Vista, XP, Ubuntu* (for different groups/subjects taught)

 * The students using Ubuntu are actually installing and 
 maintaining Ubuntu themselves on a local partition, because
they are doing a course in Operating Systems.
Students using DRBL have nfs-mounted home directories.
Students using Vista and XP have home directories on server with Samba.



================
Mr. JP (Petri) Jooste      
Skool vir Modelleringswetenskappe
School of Modelling Sciences
Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University
Noordwes-Universiteit / Yunibesiti Ya Bokone-Bophirima
South Africa

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