using the LTSP Display Manager (LDM) in place of GDM that is used by
Ubuntu, KDM that is used by Kubuntu, or others. User accounts are used to
limit or control access, and the LDM initializes the details for communication
between the server and client, including launching the desktop, mounting
storage devices and /home directories, and creating menu items. The entire
desktop is run on the server and displayed on the client.
By default, LTSP uses inherent abilities in Linux but has configured them to
work together smoothly. You may modify details to suit your needs. For
example, communication between an application server and a client is done
by tunneling an X11 session over SSH, making the sharing of a graphical
desktop easy and using a standard method while also being a secure method
of communicating user credentials.
One really useful feature in LTSP is that you are not limited to using only one
server in a network. If your network of thin clients grows to a point where
your current server is being taxed, there is an easy way to configure and add a
second or multiple servers to the network to share the load. In this case, the
server that a thin client uses to boot is not necessarily the same server that a
user will log in to. When you add servers, one server is chosen to be the
primary server; it controls thin client boots, handles data storage, and runs
additional services. Additional secondary servers can be much simpler
because all they do is host desktop sessions, and they are configured to use
the central services from the primary server for everything else. In a multiple-
server network, authentication of users is something that you need to think
through and configure because it is a little more complex. There are many
ways to do this, including the obvious choice: using LDAP.
Creating and maintaining an LTSP network is very useful in specific
situations and can be a cost-effective way of using administrator time while
providing useful functionality to end users. Although the foundation sounds
simple in this introductory chapter, it can be a complex task worthy of an
entire book. Our intent with this chapter is to give enough information for you
to determine whether LTSP is a technology that suits your needs and is
deserving of a closer look. To that end, we offer several useful links in the
following section and suggest checking them out as your next step.
References
http://www.ltsp.org—The official upstream LTSP website
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP—The Ubuntu
community documentation page, which is easily the best resource for