Try using usb hard drives for each student that might work starting with the live cd and then building on a usb hdd.
Cory "For all the ways in which technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three." --Alice Kuhn On 05/17/2011 09:09 AM, M. Knisely wrote:
Sorry I've not yet chimed in on this. My take on this is that live CDs, while handy teaching tools, do not provide what is trying to be accomplished. What I, and I think Chuck, would like to see is a portable demonstration toolkit. Something that a student can build as they go through the curriculum, much like an artist's portfolio.Because of the licensing limitations like VMWare, it does not lend itself to this portable idea.For the "live data" aspect, I've been kicking around using tcpreplay and a slim VM to generate this traffic. Worth a look.Mike K.On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Chuck Stickelman <cstickelman@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:cstickelman@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Howdy all! Rob, Mike K., myself, and others have been talking about ways to improve the networking technology used in the CIS program @ North Central State College. We are currently using VirtualBox as a platform for the students to install and learn various operating systems, and to use those systems to study and learn networking topics. The VMs created/used in one class are not generally available for subsequent classes or quarters. The goal is to design a solution where the students can develop their own persistent virtual networks. As they progress through the program, they would install multiple virtual machines as client systems (Windows, Linux, and others), and others as servers (Windows, Linux, and others). They would also build-out their virtual networks with Virtual Hubs, Switches, Routers, Wireless Access Points, etc. One of the things I would like to see in this environment is the ability to run multiple VMs that would simulate real-world systems. These systems would generate simulated network traffic, with simulated users sending simulated e-mail, transfering simulated files, browsing the (simulated?) Web, etc. These machines would not need a GUI, or any real user-oriented applications; all simulated traffic would be scripted. Since there could be many of these machines running at the same time, they would need to have a very small memory and CPU foot-prints. Fast boot-times would also be nice. There are multiple ways that this solution could be implemented; for each VM we could use: 1) bootable floppy images 2) LiveCD/DVD images 3) PXE and boot the VMs from a virtual server 4) virtual hard drives 5) something like OpenWRT for Intel/AMD CPUs If we are going to have multiple copies of the boot media, then it should be relatively small. If we are using one shared, read-only file as our boot device, then size may not matter, as much. I have found that multiple VirtualBox VMs can use a shared, bootable ISO file as their CD/DVD drives. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Chuck To unsubscribe send to ncolug-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:ncolug-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.