Build A Cross-Platform Test Network With Samba & GRUB

An anonymous reader writes "This tutorial shows how to combine Samba and GRUB to build a compact, highly adaptable, cross-platform test network, capable of booting and networking a large number of operating systems on a small number of machines. Though Samba and GRUB can manage many different operating systems, this tutorial focuses on Linux and Windows." Reg required on the story.

Comments

Ways to do this

[GC]

With Grub you still can only really have as many machines up and running concurrently as, well, as you have physical machines.

VMware allows you to run multiple systems on the same network, with relative ease - although granted it isn't free, but it does run under Linux (and runs Linux as a guest OS)

I actually have only one dual-boot system on my network, the others are all on their own dedicated operating systems.

The dual-boot system is capable of running quite a few virtual machines at the same time - Great for testing, and it's possible to transfer virtual disks across the network, or use real partitions.

Ooooooo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I use TCP too? Man, that would kick ass. Imagine using TCP to connect machines on different platforms. Shit, we could even develop a WORLD WIDE NETWORK!

Cross-platform via networking

[Turing Machine]

Interesting stuff, with some good humor (I especially liked "Windows NT/2000/XP are not possessed of such tender sensibilities; still, we'll deceive them too, as they have their own little quirks. Besides, it's easy and fun.").

Personally, I hate rebooting and I also need to test my Java code on Mac OS X, so how I handle this problem is by keeping my source code in a directory on my Linux machine mountable via Samba and NFS. Compiling and testing on Windows 2000 or OS X is just a matter of hitting a button on the KVM switch. You could probably do it via VNC if you don't want to invest in a KVM (or, of course, if you don't mind having multiple monitors and keyboards, you could just have independent machines).

Wow, a really clear grub tutorial

[nich37ways]

For all the good information this tutorial has in it, I am still reading it, the greatest part would have to be the incredibly clear and nicely laid out set of instructions on how to use Grub with different operating systems. Normally I find this information scattered across half a dozen different pages.

Anyone who actually reads it and finds it useful look hard as there is a pdf link for the entire document, as it is only 72k its a lot easier than waiting for IBM's servers to load each page. A nice touch from IBM I think. Makes life over a slow connection a little easier.

Cheers gatesh8r for the l/p

Re:Wow, a really clear grub tutorial

[Malc]

What, you don't like the GRUB Info pages? I couldn't imagine why as it does seem to follow the general rules of Info pages: excessively verbose with a pre-ponderance for discussing product history rather than getting down to the nitty-gritty and describing how to use it. What with it being disorganised, poorly written and suffer from the crappy Info UI, it's classic example of why it needs a man page pointing to. Why are so many GNU programmes documented in Info rather than man these days? I hate it.

Yes, you guessed it. I've had to suffer the GRUB Info pages in the past.

Thin on details, good primer for newbies

[gravis_23]

Better documentation on accomplishing dual booting is available at The Linux Documentation Project's site. Kudos to IBM tho for making an effort. :)

Re:Wow, that's...really not worth reading.

[Blkdeath]

The article focuses mainly on installing multiple OSs with Grub as the boot loader. This information is widely available (and without registration). The section I was interested in was on Samba. Which it doesn't talk about except to say "here's a tutorial, because I don't feel like writing about this stuff."

I found it mostly a vanity piece, really. Much of the advice she gave was quite frankly wrong, silly, or unclear (ie; could have used context).

Examples;

• Hiding Linux partitions from Win'98? Why?
• How is it "tricky" to create a Windows partition with Linux's fdisk? (It's no more/less complicated than creating a Linux Swap partition, FYI).
• Debian is the only Linux with a package management system? ("Everyone except Debian users must unpack the tarball")
• zcat and pipe a tar.gz through tar?
• GRUB can only be installed from floppy?!?
• Disable encrypted network passwords in Windows?
• Explicitly set all NICs to 100TX?

Advice given by self-ascribed "gurus" should be taken with a suitable quantity of NaCL, in my humble opinion.