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How to netwrok several TinyCore workstations and a server?

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Rich:
Hi Anubis
So your mission is:
1. To set up a number of PCs to act as test stations to check out a piece of hardware.
2. Centralize the test software so that revision control can be done at a server.

The right tool for the job is a remote directory that gets mounted locally. That means NFS, Samba, or any of the
other file sharing packages that may be out there. Here's a basic layout with the following assumptions:
1. The test stations should be identical, including the USB drives.
2. You want to save records of the test results.
3. This might be a military contract, in my day, they wanted printouts of everything.

The test station:
1. Mount the remote directory, lets call it ATE, to /mnt/ATE
2. Add /mnt/ATE/bin to the END of your path so your test programs/scripts can be found.
3. Add a link to /mnt/ATE/results to /home/tc/testresults
4. Add a link to /mnt/ATE/printqueue to /home/tc/printqueue
The test program would query the operator for the test station number and the serial number of the UUT before the
test begins. At the end of the test, the program sends the results file to testresults. If a hardcopy is required, it also
sends a copy to printqueue. If you use a file naming format something like:

--- Code: ---TS#.YYMMDDHHMM.SERIALNUMBER.results
--- End code ---
it makes it easy to retrieve test results at a later date based on test station number, timestamp, and/or serial number.
This may be important if you find out during production one of the test stations behaved incorrectly and you need to
find out the serial numbers of the effected units.

The server:
1. Shares the ATE directory containing subdirectories  bin, testresults, and printqueue
2. Runs a script, let's say once a minute, that prints out whatever it finds in ATE/printqueue

ananix:
Hi Rich your solution might work just fine if you are running it all as scheduled batch, print and all, and do no online transactions or else you are traveling down a path to bad performance or even failure now you are including prints.
NFS is not for online transactions-
NFS is only for sharing file systems.
CIFS should not be a consideration if its only for sharing file systems, CIFS is for sharing all kinda network recourses with more overhead as result if you just need to share filesystems.
If you need to transfer online transactions from clients to server one should make a real socket solution or the like for instance a networked database.
NFS is not a online database system, but a network file system.

Rich:
Hi ananix
I don't know what you mean by "online transactions", I'd Google it, but I'd just get back a bunch of websites offering
online transactions.

--- Quote ---NFS is only for sharing file systems.
--- End quote ---
And that is exactly what I suggested. When the operator goes to start a test. the kernel will search the PATH to find
the test program, which it will find on the share when it reaches the end of the PATH variable. It will load the
executable in local RAM and proceed to run the test. All the test stations share the same test programs.
When the test is complete, the test station sends the results file to a shared directory.
If a printout is desired, the test station sends that file to a shared directory. The server decides when to print it.

--- Quote ---NFS is not a online database system, but a network file system.
--- End quote ---
No one said anything about an online database. Chances are that these would just be report files that get archived
as a record to show that the tests were performed. I just suggested a possible naming convention that would ease
tracking down one or a group of particular reports in case of a problem. That's not a database, that's organizing
your files.

ananix:
:)

in regards to online vs batch transactions i stand corrected the school book term is online processing of transactions ;)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_batch_processing_Online_Processing_and_real-time_processing

In short its the two basic ways of doing computing.

Rich:
Hi ananix
I still don't see a problem here, maybe you could provide an example.

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