Re: [9fans] file server?

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>]

> regardless of one's terminal accomidations, i still think it makes
> a lot of sense to have a stand-alone fileserver.  it really does stink
> if your fs goes down for no reason at all.  this is especially true if
> you're doing a lot of experimenting or don't have a proper terminal.

Amen!  Three times now I've lost everything due to a combined
CPU/fileserver crashing. The joy of a diskless CPU server is it cannot
corrupt your filesystem no matter what manner of stupid things you do.

My current fileserver runs fossil, venti, keyfs, secstored, dhcpd, and
tftpd. I.e. only the bare minimum necessary to provide fileservice and
bootstrap the diskless machines. (I will soon be moving the venti to a
different machine to eliminate the current single point of disk failure.)
It doesn't even have a keyboard hooked up. And it's rock solid. Real work
is done on the diskless CPU server. Currently I drawterm to the CPU box,
but that's because the terminal machine is in pieces waiting for some
hardware upgrades.

--lyndon