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[anna]

Details:

Hardware:  1999 POS Dell with 1 Ghz Intel P3, 256 MB RAMBUS, 30 GB Harddrive.
Software:  Schoolserver Build 161 (basically a barebones Fedora Core 7 - no GUI) with OLPC specifically configured services like ejabberd, idmgr, named.
Connection:  DSL w/ static IP.  Supposed to be 5 mbps down, 512 kbps up.  In practice, more like 4 or so mbps down, 300-375 kbps up.

Other notes:
2 NICs - eth0 connected to DSL modem/router (w/ firewall, of course) placed in DMZ so it pulls the public IP.  eth1 connected to Linksys wireless access point.  Two local XOs pulling their IPs from it.

Pretty much the small school scenario as detailed in:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Configuration_Management

My background:  Not a server admin.  I'm learning as I go along, so please be gentle in your criticism.

Now that that's out of the way, I've been doing some testing.  Got a few users connected to the public jabber server as mentioned in this post:

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2434.msg21754;topicseen#msg21754

I realize this is an extremely underpowered machine according to the specs detailed on the wiki for a schoolserver, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that a school might recycle their old hardware in a similar setup.

Last night, I had 8 users from all over the US and Canada connected to the jabber server.  Four were just idling, the other four of us were chatting and sharing the record activity.  I was running top on the server to watch what was going on while we did different things.

First of all, the chat activity is really snappy.  Consumed negligible system resources, even when a couple more folks joined the chat for a total of six.

Completely different story for the record activity.  We had four users sharing the record activity and getting busy with it.  Downloading a photo took 17% of the CPU for a couple of seconds.  That's per user.  Downloading a video took 25% of the CPU for the several seconds it took to get.  Again, that's per user.  So when two users downloaded a video at the same time, the ejabberd process took up over 50% of the CPU.  Strangely, the memory usage stayed pretty stable no matter what we were doing, to my great relief considering how little I've got.

This was a very small test, but I just wanted to get a feel for what was actually going on "under the hood."  We didn't get around to sharing a Write activity or anything else, but that's next on my list to check out.

What concerns me is how this is going to scale for 100+ XOs.  While the schoolserver should be running on much better hardware than this in the field, if a bunch of kids get all crazy with sharing the record activity, that's going to max out any processor very quickly.

[Tortuga]

anna,

Here is a link to another person just setting up a school server in NYC on a Dell Inspiron 530. Might be a contact source for information?
http://olpcnyc.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/olpc-school-server-xs-software/

This is something I need to learn to do, we just received an older server and am awaiting parts to get it up and running, so am reading with a great deal of interest about your setup procedures, bugs, and problems and how to solve them.

[anna]

Tortuga,

What's really heartening so far is how well it seems to be working despite:

1.  I don't know what I'm doing.  In fact, I have an English degree (cue Garrison Keillor joke here).  My brother, the MIS major, has helped me a little, but only so far as network security stuff.  Mostly I've been scouring the wiki, googling, and then editing config files with wild abandon.  It's my dev machine, after all.
2.  To say it's an "ad-hoc" setup would be putting it kindly.


The OLPC NYC blog post you linked to reminds me of more things I need to figure out.  Backups, for one.  And Moodle.  And just basic server stuff.  I especially need to wrap my head around what the XO is looking for in terms of the private domain name and where all that stuff lives.

I registered these two XOs to the server and it made directories in /library for them (named the S/N of the machines).  But there's nothing in there, at least the last time I looked.  I don't think the domain name for the schoolserver in /home/olpc/.sugar/default/config on the XO is correct, so it's not doing what it's supposed to do.

And then when I go to http://schoolserver, which is supposed to serve up the home page, it doesn't find it on the XO, though it does on the other machines on my LAN.  It does work on the XO when I go to http://schoolserver.myfakedomain,  so I'm a little confused.

My distinct hope is as this matures, there will be more complete documentation out there for those of us who possess persistence but little experience.

We need to have a board on this forum for XS specific stuff, as this is really the jabber & chat board.

To try to stay on topic: if you have a decent connection, a static IP, and a spare computer, it's possible to run your own public jabber server using the XS server software.  Goodness knows the setup sounds a lot easier than installing and patching ejabberd on top of Ubuntu server.

[Tortuga]

anna wrote:

We need to have a board on this forum for XS specific stuff, as this is really the jabber & chat board.

We can ask for that, and see if Wayan is willing to do that. I think it deserves a separate category.

I don't know what I'm doing.  In fact, I have an English degree (cue Garrison Keillor joke here).

My degree is not in computer science either. However, since I am involved in a small scale deployment, looks at though I will be learning a lot more about servers, in addition to the power setups we are working on.

I'll do some more searching around and see what I can find that may be of value.

[Dinky]

Can XS be run on an xo with a large enough external drive ?

I have been trying to use the approach for running ubuntu on a USB drive (XS iso download and creation of live OS on USB drive).  Have not been successful (it creates a 450 meg image).  Yet to try adding a swapfile.

My interest is a XS for 5 xo's not on internet -- mesh transceiver not available in US yet.

[anna]

Can XS be run on an xo with a large enough external drive ?

I have been trying to use the approach for running ubuntu on a USB drive (XS iso download and creation of live OS on USB drive).  Have not been successful (it creates a 450 meg image).  Yet to try adding a swapfile.

My interest is a XS for 5 xo's not on internet -- mesh transceiver not available in US yet.

I haven't tried this, but check out this message on another thread:

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2708.msg21810#msg21810

You'll probably want to go to the site the OP mentioned for your particular issue:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_as_XS

[anna]

I put a picture of "Frankenserver" in /var/www/html so it's public, along with instructions on how to connect to the public jabber server.

YMMV!  Don't expect miracles or even stability, please!  Though, the community that's developed there has been incredible. We have had the most wonderful chats.  Mostly tech stuff, of course.

I might bring it down at anytime either to work on it or the cats might have knocked it over, so sorry if it's down.  That's why I'm not making this officially public on the wiki.  Don't want to disappoint.

However, it should be a good clue if the httpd service is up, that the ejabberd service is up as well.   Check that before you bother to reboot Sugar into my Jabber server.

http://65.5.225.206/

If you're feeling brave:

sugar-control-panel -s jabber 65.5.225.206

[Tortuga]

There is a new server build out, Build 163, not sure what bugs/problems it fixes:

*School Server:*
John Watlington:
- Released a new build of XS School Server software (build 163) this week which fixes some problems with an earlier bug-fix release (build 161).
- Build 163 is recommended for all new installations.

I am still waiting on part for my server setup 

Also found the server development board forum?

http://news.gmane.org/group/gmane.linux.laptop.olpc.server.devel/last=616/force_load=t

[anna]

I installed 163 on Friday at Glen Iris.

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2708.msg21936#msg21936

I'm not sure what exactly it fixed from 161, but it sure was a lot less trouble.  Either that or I'm getting better at this.  Though I suspect our previous installation problems were the result of network issues, i.e. the IT guys setting up the access points and switch with their own IPs instead of the range the XS and XOs are expecting.

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