[TriLUG] "basement" SAN, non-traditional computing devices demo ?

[Mark W4CHL]

On the "basement" SAN thread (moving away from the politico thread...) At the QTH was using an old iPaq C500 (like the one sold by our kiasoft poster) as a file server/backup server to the main set of PCs/workstations in my office. Now setup a distributed data network including a Linksys NSLU2 and now adding a Kuro Box (opened up Buffalo Linkstation specifically for hacking).  Each of these runs a Linux kernel, the NSLU2 on a StrongArm (now Intel iAPX) the Kura Box/Linkstation on the micro-PowerPC.

The NSLU2 has several kernel options now: stock from Linksys, Unslung (boots from files mostly on the external USB freeing up space on flash), and an OpenSlug version.  See: http://www.nslu2-linux.org/  and two eGroups active on the subject. The NSLU2 pops up on eBay for $65 or so + $10 s/h and the Kuro Box is $150 at this point from http://www.revogear.com (spin off of Buffalo Technologies who market the Linkstation for about $200 street with an included 120GB HDD).  NSLU2 is diskless, size of two-pack of playing cards, Kuro Box/Linkstation is about the size of many external 3.5/5.25 USB/SCSI CD-ROM/HDD cases. 

Each is a NAS device, but I thought lashing them together in interesting ways might be interesting way to get back into hands-on Linux, and get me a portable file server for some digital Amateur Radio station projects that are just waiting for some more attention rather than bailing wire and twine using traditional PC hardware.  Also some old laptops are in the mix as test servers of various types. All this is low-power stuff that can run for days off modest gel-cell batteries and be maintained if reasonable sunlight available by solar panels if need be.  Was working on Amanda backup servers, but found BackupPC (see sourceforge.net) does wonders for what we wanted to replace Retrospect soon.  Need perl for that, thus moving up to the Kuro Box from the NSLU2 (not enough memory and other performance bottlenecks by comparison). 

In our house these are hanging off a WiFi backbone (Linksys WRT54gs is one of them running Sveasoft Linux code) with two mixed WiFi and wired subnets. My daughter wants an iTunes server, which is also doable but haven't pulled that together yet. Not completely documented either, work and family stuff are appropriately higher priority. 

So it isn't a dedicated "SAN", but the backbone is (almost) dedicated to "backend" data transfer with end client devices on the mixed wireless/WiFi subnets. All this connected into Mindspring DSL at one of the WiFi backbone routers (which I really want to move over to Intrex hosted real soon now !) 

Perhaps if there is interest, a "demo day" of some of these non-traditional SOHO Linux devices would be of interest to the group ?  I'd love to see firsthand some of the Linux PDAs that I have read about but never poked at firsthand. 

We're planning on demos using devices such as these as props at National Engineers Week in the schools this year. I'll post here trolling for volunteer techies, if I could !?

Cheers de Mark 

Mark R. Smith  Chapel Hill, NC 
http://rtpnet.org/parc