sdj@rivar.reo.dec.com (simon jackson) (04/22/91)
Hi, I would like to hear comments and suggestions on the following and whether what I am trying do do is possible. I run a DECsystem 5400 as a server system. Hung off this are several vs2000s running as X-Terminals. They serve their applications from the /usr area currently. i.e. I setld install their products in the default hierarchy. We have just taken delivery of several DS5000/200 workstations and I wish to run these served from the same server. Choices here: 1) Load down Ultrix on to local disks, boot locally. In this scenario I would like to be able to have an environment on the server where I can install the applications and serve them to all the workstations. i.e. setld load the applications into a different hierarchy on the server and NFS mount that hierarchy and also point the local applications to the same hierarchy. 2) Set up a diskless environment on the server and down load the workstations. Problems: With idea number 1. The aim here was to have a single installed hierarchy with all the applications.i.e. install all applications into /apps. Then all users would have the second hierarchy in their $PATH . The local x-terminal users would be able to access the applications and the workstations would NFS mount the /apps hierarchy and access them that way. The problem is that although setld will quite happliy install into the hierarchy, when the applications start up they appear to look for other files outside the hierarchy. i.e. instead of an application loaded from /apps/usr/bin looking for files in /apps/usr/lib it appears to look in /usr/lib. This fails and the application dies. With idea number 2. This requires that the applications be installed twice. First time in the servers /usr area for the x-terminals and second time in the diskless environment area. Twice as much work to keep the environments up to date and twice the disk space. Also when the system is upgraded to new versions of Ultrix (when not a setld upgrade) both environment areas have to be reinstalled, whereas in the first case the apps area is not effected by the upgrade. Is there any way around this problem, i.e. can I set something up ( an common environment variable) which would make option 1 work so that the applications search in the right hierarchy for files. Cheers Simon....