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+ <item>
+ <title>Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu</title>
+ <link>Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
+Debian Edu. The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
+handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
+and go.</p>
+
+<p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
+Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
+example called Roaming Workstations. Here are my thought on this.
+The setup would consist of the following:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary usre of
+ the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
+ the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
+ server. This allow the user to work also when offline. The
+ central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
+ request, for example mounted via CIFS. It could be mounted
+ automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
+ and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
+ hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
+ request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
+ can be used to access it when needed. Perhaps it is enough to use
+ the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
+
+ <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
+ authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
+ to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
+ to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server. This can be done using
+ <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
+ or the Fedora developed
+ <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
+ Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
+
+ <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
+ using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
+ directory, using unison.</li>
+
+ <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
+ their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
+ the box with CUPS. For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
+ system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
+ implemented.</li>
+
+ <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
+ sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
+
+ <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
+ cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
+ local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
+the moment. If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
+in time for the Squeeze release to freeze. Some of the pieces need
+tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
+(<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
+perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
+its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
+when disconnected from the net. If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
+to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</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>Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future"</title>
<link>Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Opphavet til Skolelinux-prosjektet</title>
- <link>Opphavet_til_Skolelinux_prosjektet.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">Opphavet_til_Skolelinux_prosjektet.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description>
-<p>De færreste er klar over at Skolelinux-prosjektet kom som et resultat
-av en avgjørelse på årsmøtet i
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> i 2000-06-29, der Håkon Wium
-Lie, da varamedlem i styret, tok på seg oppdraget om å starte et
-initiativ kalt "Teach the Teacher", som skulle være et initiativ for
-å få fri programvare og unix-lignende operativsystemer inn i Skolen.
-Tanken var at en måtte starte med lærerne for at ungene skulle få
-mulighet til å møte en bedre IT-hverdag. Jeg var tilstede på
-møtet, og hadde sans for ideen, men intet skjedde. På vårparten
-2001 ble det arrangert en demonstrasjon i anledning at First Tuesday
-hadde invitert Microsoft til et møte for å fortelle om fremtidens
-Internet. Dette provoserte endel av oss, og EFN og NUUG tok initiativ
-til å arrangere
-<a href="http://www.digi.no/60982/first-tuesday-mote-med-microsoft-protest">en
-demonstrasjon utenfor lokalene 2001-05-21</a>. Blant de som sto bak
-demonstrasjonen var Vidar Bakke fra NUUG og Håkon W. Lie fra EFN.
-Etter demonstrasjonen arrangerte Håkon en fest hjemme hos seg der alle
-som hadde vært aktive i demonstrasjonsplanlegging og gjennomføringen
-deltok. Før festen var jeg blitt lei av å vente på at Håkon skulle ta
-initiativ til "Teach the Teacher", og for å forsøke å få litt fremgang
-besteme jeg meg for å benytte anledningen hos Håkon til å snakke om
-behovet for å hjelpe skolene i gang med bedre datasystemer bestående
-av fri programvare og unix-lignende operativsystemer. Flere var
-interessert, og Knut Yrvin tenkte på ideen. Han
-<a href="http://developer.skolelinux.no/brev/2001-06-28-invitasjon-skolelinux.txt">ropte
-sammen</a> til et stiftelsesmøte i prosjektet i sin arbeidsgivers
-Objectwares lokaler ved Ullevål stadion 2001-07-02, og jeg ble med.
-Resten er historie. :)</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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