<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
+ <item>
+ <title>Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
+project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
+making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
+communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
+friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
+going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
+release (0.2).</p>
+
+<p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
+new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
+Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
+system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
+file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
+where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
+the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
+boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
+and build using
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
+with a user with sudo access to become root:
+
+<pre>
+git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
+ freedom-maker
+sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
+ mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
+ u-boot-tools
+make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
+</pre>
+
+<p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
+devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
+want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to <a
+href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
+vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
+kpartx call.</p>
+
+<p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
+method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
+the preseed values:</p>
+
+<pre>
+url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
+</pre>
+
+<p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
+recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
+currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
+'<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
+installation will get the installation going. This affect all
+installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
+
+Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
+us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
+irc.debian.org)</a> and
+<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
+mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
+storing user home directories and data. The design for handling this
+in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
+to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
+the clients take care of the rest. I was reminded about the need to
+document this better when one of the customers of
+<a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
+on the board of directors, asked about how to do this. The steps to
+get this working are the following:</p>
+
+<p><ol>
+
+<li>Add new storage server in DNS. I use nas-server.intern as the
+example host here.</li>
+
+<li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
+all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
+
+<li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
+tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
+
+</ol></p>
+
+<p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here. Follow the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
+in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
+started).</p>
+
+<p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
+relevant subnets or machines:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
+Export list for nas-server:
+/storage 10.0.0.0/8
+root@tjener:~#
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
+/storage export. With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
+netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
+NFS access.</p>
+
+<p>The next step is to update LDAP. This can not be done using GOsa²,
+because it lack a module for automount. Instead, use ldapvi and add
+the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
+bottom of the document. The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
+wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
+need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
+objectClass: automount
+cn: nas-server
+automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
+
+add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
+objectClass: top
+objectClass: automountMap
+ou: auto.nas-server
+
+add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
+objectClass: automount
+cn: /
+automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
+tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
+directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
+
+<p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
+the storage server directly by just visiting the
+/tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
+workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Hvordan bør RFC 822-formattert epost lagres i en NOARK5-database?</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_b_r_RFC_822_formattert_epost_lagres_i_en_NOARK5_database_.html</link>
<p>Det ser dermed ut for meg som om det er et lite behov for å
standardisere XML-lagring av RFC-822-formatterte meldinger. Noen som
vet om god spesifikasjon i så måte? I tillegg til den omtalt over,
-har jeg kommte over følgende aktuelle beskrivelser (søk på "rfc 822
+har jeg kommet over flere aktuelle beskrivelser (søk på "rfc 822
xml", så finner du aktuelle alternativer).</p>
<ul>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 6 Dec 2013 09:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
-but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
-Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
-had a new school administrator show up on
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
-his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school. This
-time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
-Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
-Germany a few years ago.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I am Klaus Knopper. I have a master degree in electrical
-engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
-the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
-freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
-
-<p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
-from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
-projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
-system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
-<a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
-(a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
-<a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
-(Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
-system supporting various operating systems).</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
-coordinator for Skolelinux. We were looking for an all-in-one open
-source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
-introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
- <li>Quick installation,</li>
- <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
- <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
- <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
- single company,</li>
- <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
- experience and problem solutions.</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
- <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
- the next version. Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
- a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
- working again reliably.
-
- <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
- little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
- similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
- as their base.
-
- <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
- configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
- not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
- configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
- and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
- network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
-
- <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
- contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
- distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
- Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
- future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
- schemes.</li>
-
- <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
- compared to Debian.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
-rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
-Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
-upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
-programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
-occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
-programming languages for teaching.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Strong arguments are</p>
-
-<ul>
-
- <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
- teaching and learning.</li>
-
- <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
- home, and at their working place without running into license or
- conversion problems.</li>
-
- <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
- than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
- customers to certain products. But teachers need to teach
- science, not products.</li>
-
- <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
- would you need proprietary software for?</li>
-
-</ul>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 30 Nov 2013 10:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
-your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
-stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
-experiment with interesting network technology, the
-<a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
-might be project for you. 39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
-in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
-wireless community network. The work is inspired by
-<a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
-<a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
-Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
-and other successful mesh networks around the globe. Two days ago we
-held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
-mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
-<a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
-(at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
-<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
-coordinate the work. See also the NUUG blog post
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
-the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
</channel>
</rss>
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