Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology

[John Floren <slawmaster@gmail.com>]

On 1/13/2011 7:42 PM, Duke Normandin wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote:
>
>> At Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:37:52 -0700 (MST),
>> Duke Normandin wrote:
>>> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box
>>>> available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor,
>>>> keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server
>>>> on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or
>>>> Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration.
>>> I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a
>>> good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9
>>> server though.
>> That should do well enough for a basic Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server,
>> although you may wish to forgo Venti given the small RAM and drive.
> What is Venti again?
>
> [snip]
>

Venti is the archival storage for Plan 9. Basically, new files and
changes to files get written to the Fossil file system. If Venti exists,
those changes get written to Venti; Venti never deletes anything and
works on a rather cool block-coalescing system. I highly recommend
reading the paper.

On a system with a small disk, it's a good idea to go without Venti,
because of the space required. Fossil will then hold all your files,
meaning you don't get the daily snapshots, but you probably won't miss
those immediately--there's plenty of time to set up a system with a
bigger disk for Venti if you like Plan 9, or you could even add Venti
after the fact by sticking in another disk.

>> I've never bothered to install Plan 9 as a boot option on my desktops;
>> I prefer to leave them booted into Linux and connect via drawterm,
>> so as not to disturb my open applications.
> The more I think about it, and the more I understand what Plan9 is,
> the more I'm convinced that hanging a dedicated Plan9 box off my
> router, and connecting to it from anywhere inside the subnet, is the
> way to go.

That's really the best way, in my opinion.

>> On my old laptop, I kept a Plan 9 terminal install because that was
>> actually quite convenient, and I could boot using the server's root
>> from most anywhere.
> You must have had a dedicated server box as well, then?

I did until a few weeks ago, when I moved, yes.

John