LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Richard Russell <richardrussell@mail.com>
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 00:24:14 +0930

Re: An Idea...

> OK folks, here it is... This is the idea that I have been
> fantasis^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthinking about for the past year or more... I
don't

Oh, and the other thing would be that the server itself would not need a
monitor, mouse or keyboard, or even a video card, thereby saving a few
hundred off the hardware cost, and reducing potential for physical security
attacks... IMHO, it could also be handy (in some situations) to have an
internal UPS and maybe even a 4 or 8 port switch built in to the case...
This makes it more like an all-in-one appliance -- plug power in here,
phone/ISDN/ASDL in here, Ethernet cables in here, turn it on and never touch
it again, except for the tape changing... Could even mount the whole thing
in a rack, or a Cobalt-like Cube, or just some funky-looking case...
although, you'd only need to do this when you IPO... :)

I could also imagine (assuming this worked well enough) this idea extending
gradually to include more and more services, and eventually to allow
value-added apps to be spread around (eg, supposing lots of clients wanted a
slashdot-like internal discussion board, it would be relatively easy to set
them all up with one...). Later on, you could try maintaining desktop
machines with this mechanism -- in fact, you could have a complete hierarchy
of self-maintaining Linux machines, by deploying the database and tools on a
managed server somewhere... hmmm.... I think I'm getting a little ahead of
myself here :)

Anyway, I was just pointed to www.e-smith.org (and www.e-smith.net), who
seem to be doing something vaguely along these lines... although they appear
more focussed on providing a well-configured, web-managable server
distribution, along the lines of Cobalt -- ie without the administration
service... It could, however, be a useful admin tool... It appears to be
GPL'd, too...

rr



rr

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