So, a little more background which might help indicate where I diverged:
Did you install anything else before you started on your instructions? The reason I ask is because I don’t have network-manager available at the moment.
My server and client are both 64 bit VMs. Anyway to personally message you?
My precise installation went as followed:
Ubuntu Mate 14.04 32 bit standard desktop edition installation
The instructions contained in this thread
That’s it.
The reason I used the full Ubuntu Mate desktop is because I wanted Ubuntu Mate to be the desktop on the clients and PNP LTSP simply copies whatever desktop is on the server for the client image. So, installing the full desktop on the sever made the whole process really simple and easy in terms of the client image generation. The reason i used 32 bit for the server is because, again, the client image is simply a copy of the server image and so, by having 32 bit, I could be sure all clients, whatever their architecture, would be able to load the consequent 32 bit client image.
Ah, I see you are doing this with VM’s. In which case it would be helpful to see screen-shots of your VM network settings for the client and server.
Hi, in your tutorial, you’ve stated the following:
*sed ‘s/^dns=dnsmasq/# Commented by ltsp-pnp: dns=dnsmasq/’ *
-i /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
did not work for me; terminal spat out a message:
“No command ‘*sed’ found, did you mean:
Command ‘sed’ from package ‘sed’ (main)
Command ‘ssed’ from package ‘ssed’ (universe)
Command ‘psed’ from package ‘perl’ (main)
*sed: command not found”
So, I had to re do it as: sed ‘s/^dns=dnsmasq/# Commented by ltsp-pnp: dns=dnsmasq/’ -i /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Now I have everything up and running, but there is no internet connection to the client, and every time I reboot my Virtualbox, my ip address changes although it is set to static (192.168.1.2). It changes to 192.168.1.232 and I cannot for the life of me pinpoint where the error is. I have to do the sed commands again everytime I reboot. I suspect it has to do with dnsmasq?
I have a different message on an actual machine but here’s what shows up on my virtual ltsp test machine when I reboot the server:
net0: 192.168.1.137/255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.254
Booting from PXE menu
PXE
PXEBS (net0 type 128)... ok
Next server: 192.168.1.2
Filename: /ltsp/amd64/pxelinux.0
tftp://192.168.1.2//ltsp/amd64/pxelinux.0............... Connection timed out (http://ipxe.org/4c126035)
No more network devices
FATAL: Could not read from the boot medium! System halted.
I’ll try to give you a message of one of the actual machines tomorrow, but for now, I can’t find any fixes to the problem.
Here is what I did to try to fix the problem to no avail:
That’s all I have for now. Thanks!
-Dave
Hi Dave. sorry to hear you have had problems. I have to be honest with you here and simply reiterate my earlier comment that I don’t fully understand the above commands, but have simply laid them out based on the PNP tutorial on the main Ubuntu site (and on the basis of specific instructions given to me off the LTSP irc site from other users. On that basis they have always worked for me and so I don;t actually understand why they are not working for you so long as you have followed them, and the other instructions, to the letter.
Hopefully, there is someone more knowledgeable than myself who can come on here and shed some light on your problem.
Edit to add:
I’ve just taken a look at my original instructions and compared them to the site where I got them from (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/ltsp-pnp) and there appears to be a discrepancy! Though, I’ll be damned if I didn’t copy them exactly the first time!
Try the following instead (this is another copy I have just taken from the site):
sudo -i
sed ‘s/^dns=dnsmasq/# Commented by ltsp-pnp: dns=dnsmasq/’
-i /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
sed ‘s/^port=0/# Commented by ltsp-pnp: port=0/’ -i /etc/dnsmasq.d/ltsp-server-dnsmasq.conf
service network-manager restart
service dnsmasq restart
I’ve figured out what went wrong.
The instructions were supposed to be in bold on here. But the stupid formatting of this board did not format the instructions properly and, instead, has left an asterisk at the beginning of some lines. In turn causing anyone copying them to copy the asterisk as well!
Thank you very much for flagging this up Dave. I have gone back and fixed it in the original instructions. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience it has caused you
Thank you for replying, Steve.
Hmm…upon entering the new commands caused failure for me; it would give me a socket error in my VM test environment and the boot image isn’t to be found (although it is there) on an actual machine.
I’ll look into it further and retrace some steps. Thanks again. 
Alright this time, I re-did the LTSP install verbatim. The problem with the changing IPs persist.
Although this might not do anything, but, do you have a static IP? Or did you leave it as-is and went with dynamic?
I left it as it was. I am honestly baffled as to why it’s not working for you.
My strong advice is to go on the LTSP IRC channel. The guy who devised the PNP LTSP is often on there and is usually very happy to take you through the steps and troubleshoot any problems you may have. He was invaluable to me.
One other thing. Can I just check that your server is using a 32 bit Ubuntu installation, in turn causing the creation of a 32 bit client image?
Also, after initially booting the server, but before you try and boot your first client, run the following commands:
sudo service network-manager restart
sudo service dnsmasq restart
Then try and boot a client
Update:
Good news, I have updated tutorial and pnp ltsp also now works on 15.04 and 15.10
Great tutorial! Got it working straight away!
One problem though. When my thin/fat client locks its screen, I am unable to unlock it! I have tried the password for my thin/fat client user (which I would expect it to be) and also the password for my root user on the LTSP server. Neither of them work. Do any of you have any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thanks.
/Nicolai
You are doing nothing wrong. It is a bug in the way this LTSP is setup. To kill the ltsp client image’s screen saver without having to fiddle around with difficult settings/configs. I installed Caffeine screen saver inhibitor. However, it is important to install the version that works best with Ubuntu Mate. I have found it to be:
caffeine_2.5.1+546~behda~ubuntu13.10.1_all.deb
You can find it here:
https://launchpad.net/~behda/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+sourcepub/3850149/+listing-archive-extra2
You’ll find it at the bottom of the page linked above.
You need to install the above on your host server and then run:
ltsp-update-image --cleanup /
from a terminal to update the client image with caffeine
Then fire up your ltsp client. You should find that Caffeine automatically loads and is in the system tray. Open Caffeine preferences. You can either have it inhibit the screen saver when only certain applications are running. Or, if you just want it to completely disable the screen saver/screen lock, then include an application that runs all of the time as one of the trigger applications. Marco, for instance.
Whatever changes you make to caffeine preference in your LTSP session will be retained and will automatically apply then next time you fire up your client. So, you only need to set the preferences once.
The tutorial has been updated and now works on all Ubuntu Mate versions from 14.04 through to 15.10
Hello Steve,
I´ve tried to follow your tutorial, but haven´t been able to make it work. I get stuck right at the beginning!
When I execute the first command, the network manager stops, but the internet also stops, and obviously, am not able to continue. If I follow the steps, without turning off the network manager, clients won´t boot.
Any ideas?
Hi Nestor.
I am so very sorry to relate this to you. but it has stopped working for me aswell!
Frankly, I am sick to the back teeth with, presumably Canonical, changing the software goalposts such that every time a new Ubuntu version comes out LTSP breaks down again and, frankly, I have had enough of it.
All I can suggest (though I have even packed in with this as well. Though it does work) is to install Edubuntu 14.04 (Edubuntu 16.04 does not exist because Edubuntu has been discontinued at 14.04) and then install, if you so desire (and I certainly would), the Ubuntu Mate desktop over the top.
Other than that, I am out of ideas.
Steve,
Thanks for replying so quick. I´m out of ideas too. I´ve been using LTSP for about 5 or 6 years. I started with Ubuntu 10.04. I remember it was a pain to configure it because of NetworkManager issues, but I found workarounds and was able to set it up, and it worked perfectly for a couple of years. Then, I installed edubuntu 14.04 and it worked out of the box. However, when I found out that Edubuntu was discontinued, I figured I better try to install LTSP from scratch (like I had done it before). I´ve been trying for about a week and a half without success. I´m about to go crazy after trying everything.
I better try to go back to edubuntu!
Thanks again!
I suppose one thing you could try, off the top of my head, might be the following:
Install Edubuntu 14.04, minus any/all of the educational packages, depending on what you want, but including the LTSP element.
Once installation is complete, open up a terminal and type the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
do-release-upgrade
If all of that goes without a hitch, you will have ended up with Ubuntu 16.04 with LTSP
At which point you could install the Ubuntu Mate desktop over the top if you so wished. Or, if you wanted a pure Ubuntu Mate experience, purge Unity and then install Ubuntu Mate desktop.
I’ll bet a pound to a penny, however, that the distribution upgrade will break LTSP!
If you decide to have a go, let me know if it works!
Hello Steve,
I installed Edubuntu 14.04, and it all worked perfectly. Then, I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 as you suggested, but LTSP stopped working.
After that failed to work, I decided I would try (for the tenth time) to install LTSP from scratch on a clean installation of Ubuntu Mate 14.04. Guess what? It worked!
I had tried it before so many times, and it would never work, but I found out why (at least in my case).
I found out that when you install LTSP, the system assigns the following IP to the dhcpd.conf file: 192.168.0.1.
It turned out that my router has that same IP!
So, before I installed LTSP, I set up my second Ethernet card to have a static IP: 192.168.2.1
Then I installed LTSP with the following two commands:
sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone
sudo ltsp-build-client
After that, I opened the dhcpd.conf file and changed the IP 192.168.0.1 to the static IP I had setup: 192.168.2.1
I then created a couple users and rebooted the system, then I booted the first client and It worked!!
I then proceeded to install epoptes, and it’s been working perfectly since yesterday.
At the moment, I´m trying to do the same thing on a clean installation of Ubuntu Mate 16.04.
I´ll let you know how it goes…