8.1. Software installation
Software installation and upgrade should be done by using the RPM (Redhat Package Manager) since the packages
information database are shared by all clients.
It is safe to do software installation incline without rebooting the system provided your application doesn't overwrite existing files
already installed on the system.
Therefore, it is safe to use tools such as up2date and
red-carpet to upgrade your system at the server (not client). Notice, RPM query can be run at the client but not package
installation.
8.1.1. Notes on web browsers
Since user home directories are located in network file systems, it is not recommended user web browsers to use disk cache. Since files
have to save to the server's file system and then re-read from the network. This mechanism generates double network traffic and causing
unnecessary disk load on your home directory server. Storing temporary files in expensive storage like SCSI disk arrays and backup
temporary files is also wasting system resources. It is strongly suggest to setup proxy servers for your network, using Squid proxy server
to setup a transparent web cache proxy is quite easy and is freely available. You can configure web browsers like Netscape and Mozilla
to default having zero disk cache in their global configuration files.
