3. Setting up the Server side

You found all the software you needed. Now let's install them.

3.1 AIX License

Before making the tarball on the aix machine, make sure you run /usr/netstation/bin/agree in order to make the kernel in a usable format. Probably you will have to do the same thing with the tarball you get from the IBM website. So finding the kernel separatly might be another solution. Find a drive with about 25Mb of free diskspace, I use /usr/netstation/, and unpack the tarbal either from the IBM website or from an AIX machine. There is no need in using the approx 60Mb from /usr/netstation/doc on the disk if you don't have enough diskspace.

3.2 Not using the AIX binaries.

This section has been contributed by Ken Collins and still have to be crosschecked by me.

• Download nsmsetup.exe from http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/nc/pcserver/index2.shtml
• I don't have NT set up, so I moved it over into a Win98 partition and tried executing nsmsetup.exe. It extracted properly, then choked on the install and removed all the install files. Then I tried opening it with WinZip, and that worked. I just extracted everything into my Windows partition under the directory C:/netstation.
• I then copied everything from C:/netstation/prodbase to my linux box. I set everything up in /usr/netstation, which I think was a mistake. I ran strings on parts of the package, and it looks like /netstation/prodbase is compiled into various programs. I'm going to try it again with installing in /netstation/prodbase
• Booting the kernel worked fine. I'm not sure how much of the rest of it worked, since I've never seen a working netstation. I'm getting a lot of error messages, but an X server comes up, and I'm able to telnet and start Mwm. I was able to set up xdm and log into my Linux server, until I botched something. Now I get an IBM login screen that doesn't allow me to log in.

Philip Tait wrote to tell us this : "From the directory tree extracted from nsmsetup.exe using WinZIP classic, copy the entire tree under "Prodbase" to /netstation. Export /netstation, and proceed as for the following sections.

3.3 The Linux Part

Setting up the nfs server

Edit your /etc/exports, add the line

/usr/netstation   10.0.0.50(rw)

[root@velvet sdog]# ps auxf |grep rpc<p>
sdog      4145  0.0  5.8   828   384  p1 S   03:55   0:00          \_ grep rpc
root      3120  0.0  5.7   944   380  ?  S  Feb 27   0:00 rpc.mountd 
root      3129  0.0  1.5   880   100  ?  S  Feb 27   0:10 rpc.nfsd 
[root@velvet sdog]# kill -9 3120 3129 ; /usr/sbin/rpc.mountd ; /usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd

or on a RedHat-like system easier

[root@velvet init.d]# pwd
/etc/rc.d/init.d
[root@velvet init.d]# ./nfs restart
Restarting NFS services: rpc.nfsd rpc.mountd done.
[root@velvet init.d]# 

Your NC should now be able to mount the /usr/netsation by NFS.

Bascially if you don`t need X-Windows this is as far as it gets. You can easily telnet from your NC with nothing more installed. However the beauty of this thing is it`s X capability.

Setting up the X server

Next we have to set up the X server. Basically I didn't need to set up anything, all of my machines that ran X-Windows were configured to accept connections. I just started up the NC for the first time and it showed me all the machines that ran an XDM (cfr running an X -indirect). So any machine that can run xdm can be used as X Server. Just make sure XDM is So any machine that can run xdm can be used as X Server. Just make sure XDM is started.

Everything on the server side should be setup now. Lets try the NC side.