[TriLUG] Diskless w/s for legacy DOS app?

[bp]

I miss the part where ssh would come in to play.  If  I setup the 
software on a server then had a thin client ssh to it, receipts would 
print on the servers LPT1.  I need to run the dosemu on the thin client 
so as receipts print on the attached printer.  This way the dos app 
works as designed - both systems run the same exe from the same 
directory and access the same db files.  Cheap & easy way to do 
transactions & stay in sync.

I'll follow up more after some reading tonight about dosemu & thin clients.

Thanks - bp
& I appreciate the interest, could use some expertise around thin 
clients as I've never dabbled in the subject.

Jason Tower wrote:

>you're on the right track, the first step is to verify that the DOS code can 
>run under linux in emulation mode.  once this is verified, probably the 
>easiest thing to do is to set up thin clients to connect the server via ssh 
>or telnet.  i've done this sort of thing before, once it gets set up it's 
>pretty bulletproof and easy to maintain.  the thin clients can just be any 
>old PCs, you don't even need hard drives or cdroms, just a floppy.
>
>it sounds like an interesting little project, i'd be glad to give you a hand 
>testing it out and settings things up if you like.
>
>jason
>
>On Wednesday 13 November 2002 11:34, bp wrote:
>  
>
>>My family owns a video store which uses a piece of DOS software.   Every
>>so often one of the hardrives or something will go bad on one of the two
>>registers.(std. pc)  Lately with the price of hardware so low they have
>>decided to invest a bit for reliability.
>>
>>The DOS software is installed on system A, system B connects via a
>>windows share from system A which is mounted as drive M: and launches
>>the dos app as m:\dos.exe in a console.  The app prints to a dot matrix
>>printer on lpt1 w/o spooling jobs.
>>
>><snip/>
>>So could I wrap up all of this as a no nonsense workstation void of
>>breakable bits like hd's & Windows?
>>
>>I'd like to burn a cd or write a diskette to boot machine B with
>>network, samba and dos emulation support.  This would allow us to make a
>>dumb workstation with the minimum fuss.  Disk goes bad, just shove in
>>another copy of said cd/floppy.
>>
>>    
>>