LTSP clients on Ultra Sparc

Zouhir.Hafidi@math.univ-lille1.fr

Last updated : 2004/06/10


I assume:
- your network is 192.168.1.0/24
- your ltsp server IP is 192.168.1.254


On your ltsp server (mine is i386)

1. Install ltsp (or k12ltsp )

2. Go to /opt/ltsp

3. download and untar the following tarballs (this will result in a /opt/ltsp/sparc directory):
ltsp-audiofile-0.2.3-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-bash-2.05b-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-busybox-0.60.4-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-devfsd-1.3.25-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-e2fsprogs-1.29-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-esd-0.2.32-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-gdb-6.1-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-getltscfg-0.03-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-glibc-2.3.2-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-haltsys-0.02-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-libgcc_s-3.2.3-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-libpng-1.2.5-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-lp_server-1.1.6-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-ltspinfod-0.1-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-ltsptree-0.11-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-modutils-2.4.22-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-ncurses-5.3-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-net-tools-1.60-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-open-1.4-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-pam-0.77-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-pci_scan-0.02-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-popt-1.0-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-portmap-4-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-prep_swap-0.01-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-rdesktop-1.2.0-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-ssh-3.7.1p2-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-startsess-1.1-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-strace-4.4.94-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-sysvinit-2.84-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-tcp_wrappers-7.6-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-x-core-4.3.99.901-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-x-fonts-100dpi-4.3.99.901-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-x-fonts-4.3.99.901-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-xinetd-2.3.12-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-ypbind-1.14-0-sparc.tgz
ltsp-zlib-1.1.4-0-sparc.tgz

kernel-modules-2.4.20-2.3sparc-ltsp-1.0.tgz

4. Add the following line to /etc/exports and restart NFS
/opt/ltsp/sparc           192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(ro,no_root_squash,sync)


On your DHCP/tftp server

5. Add entries like this in your /etc/dhcpd.conf and restart dhcpd (I don't use rarpd since I tell the ultrasparc stations to use dhcp)
   host sparc_hostname {
        option root-path              "192.168.1.254:/opt/ltsp/sparc";
        hardware ethernet             XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX;
        fixed-address                    192.168.1.1;
    }

6. Go to the /tftpboot directory

7. Download the following kernel + ramdisk
kernel-2.4.20-2.3sparc-ltsp-1.0.img

8. For Ultra5 and Ultra10 create the following sym link. For other ultrasparc architectures see SUN platform names and groups
ln -s kernel-2.4.20-2.3sparc-ltsp-1.0.img SUNW.Ultra-5_10


On your UltraSparc station

9. At the OK prompt, just type the following and you will get the LTSP login screen or the Windows TSE login screen if you choose a rdesktop session
boot net:dhcp

and to make this the default boot, enter
setenv boot-device net:dhcp

If this works for you than you have no need to use the local hard disks


Keyboard and mouse configuration

I have configured 2 types of keyboards: sun french and sun us type5 with mouse directly connected to the keyboard

10. Put the following lines in the Default section in /opt/ltsp/sparc/etc/lts.conf to have the mouse working either with french or us keyboards
        X_MOUSE_PROTOCOL   = "BusMouse"
        X_MOUSE_DEVICE     = "/dev/sunmouse"
        #X_MOUSE_RESOLUTION = 400
        X_MOUSE_BUTTONS    = 3
        X_ZAxisMapping = "4 5"

11. To have sun us type5 keyboards as the default do the following on your ltsp server:
patch -p0 < build_x4_cfg.patch

12. To have sun french type5 keyboards do the previous step and add the following section in /opt/ltsp/sparc/etc/lts.conf just after the default section
[hostname_with_french_type5_keyboard]
        XkbModel  =     "type5"
        XkbLayout  =    "fr"


My test machine

This worked for me on a Sun sparc Ultra 5 with OBP 3.31, Ultra-IIi 400Mhz and 256 Mbytes of RAM and believe me it runs very faster than a station with an operating system on the local hard drive

00:00.0 Host bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Ultra IIi
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Simba Advanced PCI Bridge (rev 13)
00:01.1 PCI bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Simba Advanced PCI Bridge (rev 13)
01:01.0 Bridge: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. EBUS (rev 01)
01:01.1 Ethernet controller: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Happy Meal (rev 01)
01:02.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro 215GP (rev 5c)
01:03.0 IDE interface: CMD Technology Inc PCI0646 (rev 03)

How to build ltsp for ultra sparc from source

Some important links