Sunray @ home

Sunray Thin ClientAt work, we use Sunray Thin Clients (see a previous post). Based on a client-server schema, the clients uses lot of protocols such as BOOTP, DHCP, TFTP and more.

For a few weeks, my goal was to use a Sunray at home: Just plug my smartcard and work on my existing sessions. It’s now done!

The last SunRay software has greatly improved the support for “non-directly-connected” clients. Now you just need a nameserver, a DHCP servers and a VPN connection to your Sunray VLAN or subnet.

  1. Configure your DHCP
    A fixed IP address is not mandatory but can be useful when debugging traffic. In your DHCP lease, you must provide valid domain-name and domain-name-server options. For sure, you’ll need to fix the correct MTU depending on your connection. See later.
  2. In the domain-name zone provided by the DHCP server, add a “A” record sunray-config-servers pointing to your Sunray server(s). Multiply A records may be added for load-balancing.
  3. Setup your VPN to allow the sunray to reach your Sunray server

For sure, you’ll have to fine tune your client MTU. I won’t discuss this topic here, there is an excellent article here!
Note: By using this “DNS” method, the Sunray client will be able to fetch itself the last firmware release but if your home client has an older version, you’ll need to connect it at least for the first time on the local network. Once updated, bring it back home. To check your client firmware, see the utfwload(1M) tool.

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