LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

[ken tjia]

I have read the nice article by Dr. Wayne on the sublect of
using Linux OS as a "file Server" for a typical Alpha 5 application.

My question here is :

Has anyone done one step further to operate Alpha Five in
Linux in the similar way Alpha 5 being run on Citrix or MS Terminal Server.

I am currently running my alpha 5 applications on a Terminal Server. My application get loaded once only and stay in my one and only one server by my office, where my users are scattered across the country logging in via terminal server client or internet.

I would like to move to Linux to save on $ that required by Microsoft Licensing. And I know Linux has an equivealent of terminal server client arrangement utilities.

Any comments is greatly appreciated.

Ken Tjia

[Bo Vandenberg]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Linux has several thin client setups. Most of them require that the base programs run on Linux. Alpha doesn't run on Linux (I have never tried it with WINE but for production I wouldn't.).

The user interface requires Windows so you need your windows licenses.

Samba works as a place to store the database files because Samba is so good at mimicking Windows that the clients don't know.

You might be able to remotely control a windows box from a linux box but I don't think it would be as slick as Citrix and probably wouldnt be worth it because it would not remove your Windows Reliance.

Bo

I'd love to see a linux version too

[Ryan Ware]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

What Bo said. Windows and Citrix is slick. You can get Citrix for Unix and I believe Linux now, but you need a Windows machine to run Alpha. Wine is miles away from prime time for all but the simplest of apps. You could get really fancy and run a Windows instance in Vmware on Linux or stick a Windows board in a Sun server. You don't gain much in either setup, well except some exceptional hardware in the Sun scenario, because you still have to pay for all the Windows licenses.

I would say right now Dr. Wayne has the right idea about using Linux in conjunction with Alpha in a small office setup. At least you're saving on CAL's and have a server that arguably more stable than NT, and is likely to need less patching. Right now Linux is in the chicken/egg stage as far as smaller business apps wheras Windows has about a billion smaller business apps.

[George Pelkofer]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Hi Ken:

I don't know how much either costs to purchase and support, but you may be interested in Netraverse's WTS (Win4Lin Terminal Server) and/or Codeweavers CrossOver Office Server.

See:

http://www.netraverse.com/products/wts/

and

http://www.codeweavers.com/

Again, I'm not sure that either of these options makes economic sense (cents?) compared to running a pure Windows or Citrix type solution, but if you are having philosophical differences with Micro$oft and/or you are a devoted Linux fan, then either of these options may interest you.

I suppose that the Codeweavers solution would be more cost effective, since no Windows licenses are required for the server or workstations.

The great unknown, however, is whether or not Alpha would run on either of these platforms. I imagine that Alpha stands a better chance of functioning on the Netraverse solution, since it requires a 'real' copy of Windows to operate.

Just as a FYI for Linux-based apps (obviously no good for Windows-based Alpha, but interesting anyway), see: http://www.ltsp.org/, which is the Linux Terminal Server Project.

George

[Greg Suhok]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

I have attempted to use WINE with Alpha Five out of curiosity. It is supposed to trap windows sys calls and make the appropriate Linux/X Windows system call in its place. It is not very reliable, atleast for complex applications that require a number of dlls to run. I couldn't even get it started. Not that this is a big surprise to me, though. I have used Linux quite extensively for serving environments, ie, Apache and Samba. It seems to be best suited for these purposes. If configured properly, the server can be up 24/7 and sustain hundreds of users at a time with no problem. As for a client system and application development, I stick to Windows because of an easy to use, stable user interface.

[Bo Vandenberg]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Listenning to the comments, I have to speak in favour of both Windows and Linux.

Firstly, I think Linux is absolutely ready to do lots of things on. It handles Oracle, its stable, it has several database systems both front and back end. Notably however, Alpha is not one of them. Neither does Alpha run on Solaris, Aix or Playstation (it actually might run on playstation) -- all of those systems are simply too different for Alpha's design constraints.

I really appreciate Alpha for how easy it is to make a working application. All of its specialization and design and bug fixing is pretty amazing and not targetted at Linux.

As much as I like Linux I have to say the cost of a Windows Client license is really tiny in comparison to the tweaking and fixing you'd have to do to maybe graft Alpha onto a system it was not designed for. I also think the cost is only one tenth of the way toward the real detractor which is taking a risk with your data for the sake of $300 a machine.

(I know its far more than $300 down the road but thats its cost to the 2003/04 budget)

Samba is an exception, its slick it saves you Cals and its fast. I think at this point if Microsoft broke its compatability with Samba about half my customers might give up Microsoft.

The reason I'm interested in Alpha is its promise of SQL compatabilty with Postgres in the new versions. I'll give them the cost of a client but it would be great to get them out of the infastructure and only implement open source organization.

bo

getting off his soap box now.

[Ryan Ware]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

"Samba is an exception, its slick it saves you Cals and its fast. I think at this point if Microsoft broke its compatability with Samba about half my customers might give up Microsoft."

Bo, for the life of me I don't know why Microsoft just doesn't give file and print sharing away free. Samba is what get's a lot on companies to try Linux in the first place. If there were no money incentive most companies wouldn't bring Linux in. My company is very thrifty so we have Linux running where we can. You are right about cost of license compared to the the tweaking and configuring and tracking down documentation sometimes to make things work. I have a co-worker that would walk through Dante's 7 circles just to implement a solution in something other than Windows whether it makes sense or not. I try to think myself more pragmatic. At least I hope I am.

[PhilD]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER


Dr. Peter Wayne has an article on his site about how he set up a linux server. the url for the article is:

http://www.learn alpha.com/LinuxServer/LinuxServer.html

Looks like he didn't have to bad a time with it either.

Main page is http://www.learn alpha.com/

Phil

[Ryan Ware]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Yes, it's a good write up.

[George Pelkofer]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Hi Phil:

Just for the record, anyone who is planning on setting up a Linux/Samba server should carfully review the security options that Samba offers.

As Dr. Wayne mentioned in his article, his security requirements were somewhat diminished, since his office network does not have a gateway to the Internet.

That said, some of his security settings and methodologies would not be appropriate for a network connected to the Internet, and the security settings for his publicly-available 'share' would not be appropriate for an individual user 'share'.

In other words, I don't want everyone to be able to get access to my personal files on my 'share' on the server. The only folks that should have access to my files are me, and the root user.

For an individual users 'share', I would use the "valid users" parameter (i.e., valid users=joe for an individual or valid users=@accounting for a group), and I would set "public" to "no".

I would also change the final '7' in the "force create mode=0777" and "force directory mode=0777" parameters to '0' on an Internet-connected LAN (or virtually any LAN).

This last seven gives read, write, and execute permissions to the world (4=read, 2=write, and 1=execute - add them up to get the setting), which is inappropriate for many networking scenarios.

This setting would be inappropriate for any network that may become Internet-enabled in the future, so it's probably best to set the permission(s) to 'none' for the 'world' from the beginning.

In the broader sense, Dr. Wayne's use of "hosts allow" is quite appropriate; however, disabling the firewall on the server is not appropriate for an Internet-connected network.

At a minimum, for an Internet-enabled network, access to the CIFS TCP ports 137 through 139 on the server should be blocked with a packet-filtering firewall.

Obviously, this does not cover all of the possible security permutations, and anyone considering setting up a Linux/Samba server should do their homework.

Also, some folks have had issues with database files/data, and opportunistic locking on the server side (even on Windows servers). Also note that there are Windows settings related to oplocks on the client side as well.

To be on the safe side, it may be best to configure Samba with "oplocks=false", until some network reliability and performance testing is performed to determine whether the oplocks can be turned on for any particular network.

George

[George Pelkofer]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Hi Bo:

>> ...its promise of SQL compatabilty with Postgres...

I'm not certain that v6 of Alpha is going to provide complete compatibility with PosgreSQL.

I think that Alpha intends to provide a native driver (not ODBC) for MySQL, and that they are attempting to make MySQL databases appear the same as .dbf tables, from a development standpoint, in the Alpha environment.

I do have some questions about what platforms MySQL will have to be run on (i.e., can MySQL be hosted on a Linux server using the native driver?), etc.

PostgreSQL is arguably a more featured system than MySQL; however, I think that many more resources are available (documentation, help, support, etc.) for MySQL, and it is probably moving along, development-wise, much faster than Postgres.

I can only guess that support for ODBC databases will improve in v6 of Alpha. PostgreSQL certainly falls within this category.

George

[Lenny Forziati]

Re: Linux / Terminal Server

I do have some questions about what platforms MySQL will have to be run on (i.e., can MySQL be hosted on a Linux server using the native driver?), etc.

The MySQL server can be running on any platform supported by MySQL. It is NOT restricted to Windows-based MySQL servers.

I can only guess that support for ODBC databases will improve in v6 of Alpha. PostgreSQL certainly falls within this category.

V6 is slated to have full ADO support, which will allow you to connect to PostgreSQL or just about any other database server.

-Lenny

[PhilD]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

George,

I stumbled upon Dr. Waynes article, and was just using the article as an example that you can serve up Alpha 5 from a server that is not a Microsoft server.

While Dr. Wayne's method works and he mentions the lack of security in his method, thanks for going into some detail in pointing out the security issues with his method. Security is always a big issue in an networked enviroment.

That said, I was thinking of trying his method in the future on my home network just for the fun of it. I don't need much security on it. I think I would just need to block access from the internet.

Thanks,

Phil DeGruy

[George Pelkofer]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Hi Phil:

As usual, Dr. Wayne provides his continuing high level of knowledge and help to Alpha users, and his article is very helpful in getting a new Linux user's Samba box up and running very quickly.

The real intent of my long-winded message above was to remind folks that they should not necessarily use Dr. Wayne's Samba parameters/setup as a boilerplate solution in their own given network scenario, since it could easily expose their network(s) and their data.

Good luck with your at-home Linux experiment!

George

[ken tjia]

RE: LINUX / TERMINAL SERVER

Thanks you Gentleman,

It is amazing my questions generate such a warm responses.
My goal is very simply... Window 2003 terminal server is now running my application very very very well....

I am very happy with the setup and served the purpose with userc logging in from across Canada.

I have single Database and single server to maintain and update for changes. I have full control of the situation.

I would like to duplicate the same thing at home but stuck with a "Legal" Microsoft 2003. That is why I would like a low cost solution for Home-Use. That lead me to dream about the use of Linux.

I have read Dr. Wayne articel, but it is act as a database server, but running as a multiuser terminal server still need more investigation, I had a college kid here to help me last year, we had Alpha on, but again not reliable...
Some screen/fomr comes up and often just freeze and long delay between them etc..

That suggest either set up or simply not imitating MS Window 100%. Or now come to think about it, could this be the same problem with version 4,5 with 100% CPU duty cycle.
Has anyone tried it with version 5 ?

Thanks