1. HOWTO:Set up the network interface card(s)
For my system I do it like this 
on the machines that are NOT going to be hosting kvm. For machines that are hosting kvm guests you have to bugger about a bit, but see below.
This can all be set using the GUI from the menu System-Administration->Network>
Static IP Address 192.168.0.7
Domain myhome.co.uk
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 192.168.0.1
DNS should already be setup.
212.69.36.3
212.69.40.3
As we are using a static address you will also need to remove the entry in /etc/hosts for 127.0.1.1 and change to to read the static IP address you have assigned to the machine.
For machines that are going to host kvm guests you need to sort out a bridge to the kvm machines as this gives faster networking and does not block up your existing local network with loads of extra packes from the "user" mode networking which is t he default.
This can all be partly set using the GUI from the menu System-Administration->Network>
Configuration: Automatic configuration (DHCP)
DNS should already be setup.
212.69.36.3
212.69.40.3
Note: for DNS servers that are not supplied by your ISP use OpenDNS fast free and so far so good.
Now you need to edit the networking config file /etc/network/interfaces. Mine looks something like this now
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# Bridge to kvm guests
auto br0
iface br0 inet static
address 192.168.0.7
network 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1
bridge_ports eth0
bridge_fd 9
bridge_hello 2
bridge_maxage 12
bridge_stp off
# The primary network interface This will be overwritten by the bridge
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
To run through that quickly . The auto lines set the name for the device. and the iface lines add some values to options to that device. The lo is a loopback device, and is kinda important. You will need this. As we are using the virtual bridge device to talk to the network that will be used inside the kvm guests we needto disable the eth0 as the host will now talk to the bridge and let the bridge sort out where the network packes are going. This should have been setup already if you used the GUI above.
The virtual bridge should be configured so that it uses the IP address that you used for the host to start with. Just set up br0 as if it was eth0 adding the extra bridge options at the bottom.
You should be able to simply restart networking, but I found that did not work so I reboot and that does work. One day I may find out why.
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
Add linux60, linux32 and linux12 to the /etc/hosts list.
Ubuntu docs on kvm (these almost work see above)
2. Setting up and configuring autofs
3. HOWTO:Set up NFS sharing
- I stopped using NFS when I got autofs working **
Install the necessary software if not already done:
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap
When configuring portmap do not bind loopback. If you do you can either edit /etc/default/portmap by hand or run:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure portmap
sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
The /etc/exports file is used for creating a share on the NFS server
sudo gedit /etc/exports
Add some exports (shares) (allow IP 192.168.0.(0-255) )
/data 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,no_subtree_check,sync)
/home 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,no_subtree_check,sync)
These lines export the directories /data and /home from the local host a limited range of IP addresses and hostnames with read/write access. See man exports for more details. After making your edits save and restart the NFS daemon.
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
sudo exportfs -ra
4. HOWTO:Mount NFS shares at boot using /etc/fstab
Make the directory where you want to mount the remote NFS exports and then ad them to your fstab.
sudo mkdir -p /opt/linux60_home /opt/linux60_data
sudo chmod 777 /data
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
So if we want to mount the directoires from Linux60 on our machine at /opt/linux60_data, try something like this.
linux60:/data /mnt/data nfs rw,hard,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192 0 0
linux60:/home /mnt/home nfs rw,hard,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192 0 0
It is a good idea to test this before a reboot in case a mistake was made. Simplest way is to mount all drives not yet mounted in the fstab.
sudo mount -a
5. HOWTO:find out what the current disk label/UUID/ID
ls /dev/disk/by-label -lah
ls /dev/disk/by-id -lah
ls /dev/disk/by-uuid -lah
OR
sudo debugreiserfs /dev/sda2
and to set it to something or something else
sudo reiserfstune -label LABEL /dev/sda2
6. HOWTO: Install and configure ssh
Also install openssh server and sort out setting up the right ssh keys for the user so you can login to other machines locally without a password. This is a security risk! I want to use Xwindows programs installed and run on one machine while actually running on another, hence the ForwardX11 bit.
To allow a user from one machine to login to another another machine, you need to update the authorized user file to include the details from the guests id_rsa.pub. It is the same as saying if my friend uses their front door key in my lock it will work.
ssh-keygen -t rsa
cd ~/.ssh
echo ForwardX11=yes > ~/.ssh/config
cp id_rsa.pub authorized_keys
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
gedit authorized_keys /opt/linux32_home/richard/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
gedit /opt/linux32_home/richard/.ssh/authorized_keys id_rsa.pub
Now test that you can actually ssh to/from linux60 without a password. No needto reboot or logout. If you cannot you did it wrong.
7. HOWTO: Install Samba and share some folders.
It's all from here howto install samba
Install samba with Synaptic modify smb.conf to some realistic settings and start the daemon. (See link above)
To add new shared folders add them to smb.conf as [my_shared_folder] or use the little GUI System->Administration->shared folders.
This can also be used to talk unix<->unix but it is painfully slow, use NFS.
Only have one samba server with "wins support = yes" the others should all have wins server = <host name> or <IP address>
Note: Never have both in one file.
Also see: Samba HOWTO collection