View source for User:Jimbodude/Standalone Mode

'''Standalone Mode''' is a proposed new feature for LinuxMCE that would allow people to have a LinuxMCE Core exist as a new system on an existing network.  The goal is to encourage more people to try to use the system by allowing them to run LinuxMCE without altering their current network setup at all.  To enable standalone mode, a few things need to happen:
*Disable network management, especially DHCP, so we don't conflict with the management solution that is in place (i.e. consumer grade routers)
*Add new options to the installer to activate standalone mode
*Document the loss of functionality caused by using standalone mode

In one install of LinuxMCE, I hacked up the configuration files manually to achieve the desired behavior.  Using a bit more knowledge about the LinuxMCE system, I've found that there is a much simpler and cleaner way to do this.

==The clean way==
#Disable DHCP (uncheck the box in Web Admin --> Advanced --> Network --> Network Settings)
#Disable the Firewall, because we expect that we are already behind a firewall (check box in Web Admin --> Advanced --> Network --> Firewall Rules)
#Disable the following boot scripts for both Core and Hybrid (uncheck in Web Admin --> Advanced --> Software --> Boot Sequence)
#*DHCP_config.sh
#*Network_Firewall.sh
#*Restart_DHCP.sh
#Reboot the system

If there's only one NIC, eth0 and eth0:0 will still both exist and have different IPs, but that's ok.  Whichever one we decide to talk to will do just fine, since the firewall is off.  We can set either interface to any static IP, and the "external" can be set to DHCP if needed.  The key here is that we don't need to edit any code to make this happen.

==The gross way==
'''DO NOT do this. EVER.'''
#Disable DHCP
#Disable the firewall
#Hack the hell out of ''interfaces'' so that eth0 and eth0:0 have the same IP
#Hack the hell out of the pluto properties file to get the desired IP addresses for both internal and external network

This basically breaks LinuxMCE's auto configuration, and makes it a totally manual setup. This is not desirable, and you should never do it.