blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</title>
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  12  <h1>
  13      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  14
  15  </h1>
  16
  17 </div>
  18
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  20     <div class="entry">
  21       <div class="title">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</div>
  22       <div class="date">19th May 2010</div>
  23       <div class="body"><p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
  24 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
  25 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
  26 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
  27 into unstable.  The
  28 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
  29 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
  30 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
  31 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
  32 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
  33 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
  34 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
  35
  36 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
  37 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
  38 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
  39 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
  40 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
  41 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
  42 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
  43 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
  44
  45 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
  46 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
  47 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
  48 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
  49 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
  50 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
  51 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
  52
  53 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
  54 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
  55 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
  56 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
  57 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
  58 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
  59 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
  60 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
  61 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
  62 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
  63 on the home directory servers.</p>
  64
  65 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
  66 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
  67 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
  68 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
  69 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
  70 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
  71
  72 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
  73 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
  74 </div>
  75
  76       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.</div>
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