X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/5359dcc2c54b70e965daaceefda6be0565066bfe..dd6463569fe6f3f0ca80d56eadfbc3b1040696c9:/blog/archive/2010/04/04.rss diff --git a/blog/archive/2010/04/04.rss b/blog/archive/2010/04/04.rss index 8dfdcb89e8..66ac3cabe4 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2010/04/04.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2010/04/04.rss @@ -72,5 +72,79 @@ strongly recommend this book.</p> + + Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu + ../../../Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html + ../../../Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html + Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:40:00 +0200 + +<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> + + +