Flushing from a Client

[Bleep]

All of my machines are on a home network. (thanks to 2 face by the way)
I am using a KVM switch. I am shareing my internet connection with win 98 ics [dial up modem]. I flush each machine seperate by switching with my switch but sometimes lose my mouse or keyboard while switching which results in a shutdown and reboot. How can I flush my machines through my gateway machine and do away with the KVM switch?
Bleep

 

[DanC]

Bleep,

Probably the easiest is to just set up a pproxy. I've gone the KVM road too, with the same results. No problems at all with my Linux pproxy.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Several ways to go on that one Bleep.

You can set up remote buffers, were there is one "master" PC, and the others fetch and flush their blocks to the "master" PC. Then all you have to do is fetch/flush for the master PC. This requires the buffer folder to have shared access across your network.

Also, you can set up one PC to run the perproxy and have the other PCs connect to your perproxy to fetch/flush their buffers, and your perproxy would connect via the internet to fetch/flush it's buffers to dnet or the TAs round robin keyservers.

🙂

 

[Nohr]

I use WinVNC. It's a 'remote display system' which works over a LAN as well as over the internet. A pproxy might take less work though once you get it set up since the other computers would just flush to it automatically rather than needing you to manually do it.

 

[phatstyl]

pproxy would be the way 2 go

 

[Bleep]

DanC: Well I have had my try with linux and it is for me anyway too labor intensive, I tried it on a 486 box but could only connect 3 machines.

RaySun2Be This sounds good can you point me to tutorial on how this is done?

Nohr: A little pricey for me. I can get another MB and CPU for the price of Win Vnc. Better to crack than switch.

Bleep

 

[TwoFace]

Bleep: VNC is free... you can afford that I'm sure 😉

Good to hear that your network is running fine tho' 😀

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-FaceMy stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Poof]

Hey Bleep - I run my pproxy on windoze 2K. All my boxen (linux, windoze, NetBSD) flush blocks and stubs through that. I put the ppstats program on my linux (if you wanna get fancy later on and get a stats fix off of your own pproxy and then get the fix again at Mika's... 😉).

Also what TwoFace said about VNC is true - it's free as a guy in the hot tub! LOL 😉

I have the VNC viewer installed on my primary linux box in order to get a look at my dual Xeon 2K server (which runs the VNC server). You can VNC to/from all kinds of platforms. Check it out here. This is what most people running headless windoze boxen use to manage them remotely.

 

[JHutch]

I'm not sure what you confused WinVNC with, but like the others said, it is FREE! 🙂

Plus, it works terrifically for a home built Windows crackrack!

JHutch

 

[RaySun2Be]

Bleep,
You can get info on how to set up Remote Buffers here: Remote Buffers FAQ

I use VNC at work and home, it is free, and works well for remote management. You can password protect access.

If you do not have a Linux or NT or Win2K box available, and only dealing with a few PCs, then setting up a perproxy may NOT the best way to go, and I would recommend trying the remote buffers. Each PC uses it's own in and out buffers, so each PC can have a reserve of work units in case the network is down, and you will only have to fetch/flush from 1 PC.

Make sure you have enough work units at the master PC to feed the entire herd until dial-up time and make sure you enough work units to last a day or two on each PC in case of network problems.

Teh main issue with Remote Buffers is the more PCs you add, the greater the chance of running into a buffer lock situation where two PCs try to access the master PC file at the same time and lock up the file. The CLI command dnetc -forceunlock buff-in.rc5 or dnetc -forceunlock buff-out.rc5 will unlock the buffers.

The more PCs you add, the better it is to move to using a perproxy. If you do have access to NT, Win2K, or Linux, and you plan on adding more PCs, then perproxy is definitely the best solution.

 

[Viztech]

I'm with Ray on the remote buffering. I have used it with good results in the past, keeping a dozen machines fed from a single 'server' which did all the flush/fetching via dial-up detection. Buffer locks did happen once in a while, but forceunlock command cleared that up.

VNC might be a nice addition for you to keep track of that herd. It sounds like the combination will do the trick for you.

A Pproxy is an option, but running it on the 98 box might be a bit of a bother. If you had Win2K or NT4 that would be a different story.

Take care.

viz