+ <item>
+ <title>Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
+installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
+I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
+of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
+conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
+this:
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+tasksel --new-install
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
+tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
+any output what so ever.
+
+Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
+package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
+any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
+happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
+when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
+printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
+code like this:
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
+$cmd
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
+--without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
+~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
+~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
+laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
+important, just like tasksel would have done it during
+installation.</p>
+
+<p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
+install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
+like this.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:35:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>A while back, I
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
+about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
+for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
+of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
+the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
+the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
+computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
+
+<p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
+without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
+do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
+Debian Edu.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
+the
+<a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
+schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
+available today from IETF.</p>
+
+<pre>
+--- dhcp.schema (revision 65192)
++++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
+@@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
+ objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
+ NAME 'dhcpHost'
+ DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
+- SUP top
++ SUP top AUXILIARY
+ MUST cn
+ MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
+ X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
+</pre>
+
+<p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
+Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
+package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
+please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
+directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
+tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
+Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
+<a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
+be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
+populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
+find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
+objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
+are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
+
+<p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
+the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
+not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
+Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
+released.</p>
+
+<p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
+like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
+not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
+<a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
+
+<p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
+in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
+useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
+in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
+changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
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