[olug] Linux Lab Setup

[Sean Edwards]

Thanks for the reply!

First of all, I will investigate the "thin" client
option.  Having worked with NIS/NIS+ in the past, I
will leave that as option B or C in the list.  There
are also password and other encryption issues with
NIS/NIS+.

The donated computers are a mix of PC's and Mac's, but
no OS on any of them.  The OS licenses for Winders and
Mac OS are still company assets, and will be
reassigned to other equipment. That leaves me no
choice but to use Linux for this project, which is a
good thing!

-=Sean=-



--- Phil Brutsche <phil at brutsche.us> wrote:
> A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way, someone
> said...
> 
> > These are my requirements:
> >
> > 1) A centralized user id/password/enviornment etc.
> management system.
> 
> NIS/NIS+ is an old-school way of doing things, and
> is a must if you have
> "legacy" systems that can't use other directory
> services for the user &
> group lists.
> 
> If all the systems have the Name Service Switch
> functionality (Linux,
> Solaris, and FreeBSD 5.2.1, for example), you can
> use just about anything
> you can find libnss and PAM modules for.  LDAP is
> one of the more common
> directory services; winbind from Samba is common to
> provide Windows ->
> UNIX user mapping.  Modules exist for MySQL and
> PostgreSQL, but I don't
> think they're used much as much as LDAP or winbind
> are.
> 
> If you have any Windows clients in there as well
> (and you're using
> Active Directory), you can use Microsoft's freely
> available Services for
> UNIX to make your Windows 2k/2k3 domain controller
> an NIS + NFS server.
> 
> > 2) The ability for a user's home directory to
> auto-mount at login.
> 
> Or just statically mount /home via NFS :)
> 
> If you seriously want to have the home directory
> mounted when the user
> logs in, you should look into the automounter.
> 
> There is also the pam_mount PAM module that will do
> what you want.
> 
> Alternatively, if you don't like NFS for whatever
> reason and have Samba
> 3.0 on your file server you can use the CIFS UNIX
> extensions to do the
> same job.  The client systems will need either
> 2.4.25 - previous kernels
> don't have the smbfs updates, or any 2.6 kernel.
> 
> > 3) The ability for the user environment (printer
> etc) to follow user
> > from login to login.
> 
> Well, considering most of these settings are saved
> in dot-files in their
> home directory...
> 
> You will want to consider CUPS for your printing
> system.  It uses UDP
> broadcasts on (I think) port 631 to make printers
> known to the clients.
> It's a lot better than updating the configuration on
> multiple clients
> whenever you add/remove a printer in the lab :)
> 
> > Is LDAP necessary for this, or would this be as
> simple as setting up a
> > server with user home directories and an X server,
> with the X clients
> > connecting remotely?
> 
> Basically what you need is either:
> 
> a) a thin client setup (Central X "server" with the
> "clients" connecting
> to it)
> b) A method of getting your user database from the
> server to the clients.
> See point 1.
> 
> But to answer your question, LDAP is not strictly
> necessary, but is a very
> commonly implemented directory service for what you
> want to do.
> 
> > Would just kiosk-type workstations with no logins
> and local restrictions
> > be easier to setup and maintain?
> 
> It CAN be, but it depends on what you are trying to
> accomplish.
> Kiosk-type setups are contradictory with point 3.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Phil Brutsche
> phil at brutsche.us
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug


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