X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/98db819b4f18719da9a4646c4cfcd5adfaf1acd2..1e4be3fb3d64dae6a1ba3f2646ea2c07cb267dc9:/blog/archive/2010/04/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2010/04/index.html b/blog/archive/2010/04/index.html index ef48bc016b..d48680c895 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2010/04/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2010/04/index.html @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ Petter Reinholdtsen: entries from April 2010 - + @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@

- Petter Reinholdtsen + Petter Reinholdtsen

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
- Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze? + Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?
2010-04-14 17:20 @@ -72,13 +72,134 @@ up in a few days.

- Tags: debian edu, english, nuug. + Tags: debian edu, english, nuug.
-

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+ Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future" +
+
+ 2010-04-19 17:10 +
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+ +

The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a +thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics +touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the +conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The +book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, +Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few +restrictions on the web, for example from +his own site. I read the +epub-version from +feedbooks using +fbreader and my N810. I +strongly recommend this book.

+ +
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+ + + + Tags: english, fildeling, nuug, opphavsrett, personvern, sikkerhet, web. + +
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+ Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu +
+
+ 2010-04-28 20:40 +
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+ +

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.

+ +

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:

+ +
    + +
  • During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user 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?
    • + +
  • 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 + libpam-ccreds + or the Fedora developed + System + Security Services Daemon packages.
    • + +
  • 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.
    • + +
  • 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.
    • + +
  • For users that should have local root access to their laptop, + sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.
    • + +
  • 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.
    • + +
+ +

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 +(#566718) 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.

+ +

If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu, +please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.

+ +
+
+ + + + Tags: debian edu, english, nuug. + +
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+ +

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@@ -90,51 +211,65 @@ up in a few days.

  • 2010
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    • @@ -145,53 +280,61 @@ up in a few days.

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