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   5   <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
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  13   <h1>
  14        <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16   </h1>
  17
  18  </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22  <div class="entry">
  23   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_er_laget_for_sentraldrifting__naturligvis.html">Skolelinux er laget for sentraldrifting, naturligvis</a></div>
  24   <div class="date">2010-06-09 12:30</div>
  25   <div class="body">
  26 <p>Det er merkelig hvordan myter om Skolelinux overlever.  En slik
  27 myte er at Skolelinux ikke kan sentraldriftes og ha sentralt plasserte
  28 tjenermaskiner.  I siste Computerworld Norge er
  29 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article169432.ece">IT-sjef
  30 Viggo Billdal i Steinkjer intervjuet</a>, og forteller uten
  31 blygsel:</p>
  32
  33 <blockquote><p>Vi hadde Skolelinux, men det har vi sluttet med. Vi testet
  34 om det lønte seg med Microsoft eller en åpen plattform. Vi fant ut at
  35 Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store
  36 driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet på grunn av
  37 desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, så vi gikk vekk fra det
  38 og bruker nå bare Windows.</p></blockquote>
  39
  40 <p>En <a
  41 href="https://init.linpro.no/pipermail/skolelinux.no/bruker/2010-June/009101.html">rask
  42 sjekk</a> mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller
  43 at Steinkjers forsøk foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at Røysing skole
  44 i Steinkjer skal ha vært svært fornøyd med Skolelinux men at kommunen
  45 overkjørte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows.  Et søk på
  46 nettet sendte meg til
  47 <a href="http://www.dn.no/multimedia/archive/00090/Dagens_it_nr__18_90826a.pdf">Dagens
  48 IT nr. 18 2005</a> hvor en kan lese på side 18:</p>
  49
  50 <blockquote><p>Inge Tømmerås ved Røysing skole i Steinkjer kjører ennå
  51 Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke
  52 var så stor.   Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett å drifte uten
  53 forkunnskaper. Men man må jo selvsagt ha tilgang på ekstern kompetanse
  54 til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier Tømmerås.</p></blockquote>
  55
  56 <p>Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste på hodet
  57 over påstanden om at Skolelinux krever desentraliserte tjenere.
  58 Skolelinux-arkitekturen er laget for sentralisert drift og plassering
  59 av tjenerne lokalt eller sentralt alt etter behov og nettkapasitet.
  60 Den er modellert på nettverks- og tjenerløsningen som brukes på
  61 Universitetet i Tromsø og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av
  62 driftstjenester.  Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fått med seg, og
  63 jeg er glad for å kunne sitere fra en kommentar på den overnevnte
  64 artikkelen.  Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der:
  65
  66 <blockquote>
  67 <p>I Flora kommune køyrer vi Skulelinux på skular med alt frå 15 til
  68 meir enn 500 elevar. Dei store skulane har eigen tenar, for det er
  69 mest praktisk. Eg, som er driftsansvarleg for heile nettet, ser
  70 sjeldan dei tenarane fysisk, men at dei står der gjer skulane mindre
  71 avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste
  72 skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. Å bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje
  73 noko problem. Småskulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein
  74 sentral tenar eller tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
  75
  76 <p>Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje
  77 harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar på tenaren fordi dei køyrer
  78 programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-åtte år gamle maskiner har
  79 mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under
  80 millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar på den sentrale tenaren for å
  81 oppdatere alle klientane, både tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen
  82 problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem før fordi
  83 elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i
  84 nettet, so det er fullt mogleg å køyre slike på småskular med trege
  85 linjer mot tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
  86
  87 <p>Flora kommune har nesten 800 Linux-maskiner i sitt skulenett, og
  88 ein person som tek seg av drift av heile nettet, inkludert tenarar,
  89 klientar, operativsystem, programvare, heimekontorløysing og
  90 administrasjon av brukarar.</p>
  91
  92 <p>No skal det seiast at vi ikkje køyrer rein Skulelinux ut av
  93 boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som
  94 var der frå før, og som har komplisert installasjonen vår. Etter at
  95 oppsettet var gjort har løysinga vore stabil og kravd minimalt med
  96 arbeid.</p>
  97 </blockquote>
  98
  99 <p>Jeg vet at Narvik, Harstad og Oslo er kommuner der Skolelinux
 100 sentraldriftes med sentrale tjenere.  Det forteller meg at Steinkjers
 101 IT-sjef neppe bør skylde på Skolelinux-løsningen for sine 5 år gamle
 102 minner.</p>
 103 </div>
 104   <div class="tags">
 105
 106
 107
 108    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 109
 110   </div>
 111  </div>
 112  <div class="padding"></div>
 113
 114  <div class="entry">
 115   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a></div>
 116   <div class="date">2010-06-06 23:55</div>
 117   <div class="body">
 118 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
 119 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
 120 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
 121 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
 122 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
 123 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
 124 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
 125
 126 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
 127 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
 128 COLUMNS):</p>
 129
 130 <blockquote><pre>
 131 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
 132 previous=N
 133 PREVLEVEL=
 134 RUNLEVEL=
 135 runlevel=S
 136 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
 137 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
 138 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
 139 </pre></blockquote>
 140
 141 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
 142 script.</p>
 143
 144 <blockquote><pre>
 145 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
 146 previous=N
 147 PREVLEVEL=N
 148 RUNLEVEL=S
 149 runlevel=S
 150 </pre></blockquote>
 151
 152 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
 153 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
 154 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
 155
 156 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
 157 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
 158 choice.</p>
 159 </div>
 160   <div class="tags">
 161
 162
 163
 164    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 165
 166   </div>
 167  </div>
 168  <div class="padding"></div>
 169
 170  <div class="entry">
 171   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a></div>
 172   <div class="date">2010-06-06 14:15</div>
 173   <div class="body">
 174 <p>Via the
 175 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
 176 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
 177 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
 178 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
 179 following the standards wars of today.</p>
 180 </div>
 181   <div class="tags">
 182
 183
 184
 185    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/standard">standard</a>.
 186
 187   </div>
 188  </div>
 189  <div class="padding"></div>
 190
 191  <div class="entry">
 192   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a></div>
 193   <div class="date">2010-06-03 12:05</div>
 194   <div class="body">
 195 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
 196 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
 197 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
 198 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
 199 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
 200
 201 <blockquote><pre>
 202 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
 203   vendor                    count
 204   Dell Computer Corporation     1
 205     PowerEdge 1750              1
 206   IBM                           1
 207     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
 208   Intel                         2
 209   [no-dmi-info]                 3
 210 maintainer:~#
 211 </pre></blockquote>
 212
 213 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
 214 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
 215 information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen
 216 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
 217 option to list the individual machines.</p>
 218
 219 <p>A larger list is
 220 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
 221 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
 222 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
 223 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
 224 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
 225 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
 226 collector.</p>
 227 </div>
 228   <div class="tags">
 229
 230
 231
 232    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
 233
 234   </div>
 235  </div>
 236  <div class="padding"></div>
 237
 238  <div class="entry">
 239   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Togsatsing_p___norsk__mot_sykkel.html">Togsatsing på norsk, mot sykkel</a></div>
 240   <div class="date">2010-06-02 23:45</div>
 241   <div class="body">
 242 <p>Det står dårlig til med toget når en finner på å la det
 243 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3677060.ece">kappkjøre
 244 med sykkel</a>...  Jeg tror det trengs strukturendringer for å få
 245 fikset på togproblemene i Norge.</p>
 246
 247 <p>Mon tro hva toglinje mellom Narvik og Tromsø ville hatt slags
 248 effekt på området der?</p>
 249 </div>
 250   <div class="tags">
 251
 252
 253
 254    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 255
 256   </div>
 257  </div>
 258  <div class="padding"></div>
 259
 260  <div class="entry">
 261   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a></div>
 262   <div class="date">2010-06-01 17:05</div>
 263   <div class="body">
 264 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
 265 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
 266 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
 267 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
 268 wait.</p>
 269
 270 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
 271 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
 272 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
 273 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
 274 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
 275 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
 276
 277 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
 278 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
 279 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
 280 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
 281 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
 282 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
 283 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
 284 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
 285
 286 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
 287 </div>
 288   <div class="tags">
 289
 290
 291
 292    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
 293
 294   </div>
 295  </div>
 296  <div class="padding"></div>
 297
 298  <div class="entry">
 299   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a></div>
 300   <div class="date">2010-05-27 23:55</div>
 301   <div class="body">
 302 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
 303 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
 304 issues are known and should be solved:
 305
 306 <p><ul>
 307
 308 <li>The wicd package seen to
 309 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
 310 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
 311 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
 312 seem to be on the case.</li>
 313
 314 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
 315 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
 316 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
 317 maintainer is on the case.</li>
 318
 319 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
 320 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
 321 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
 322 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
 323 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
 324 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
 325 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
 326 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
 327
 328 </ul></p>
 329
 330 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
 331 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
 332 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
 333 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
 334
 335 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
 336 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
 337 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
 338 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
 339
 340 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
 341 </div>
 342   <div class="tags">
 343
 344
 345
 346    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
 347
 348   </div>
 349  </div>
 350  <div class="padding"></div>
 351
 352  <div class="entry">
 353   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a></div>
 354   <div class="date">2010-05-22 21:30</div>
 355   <div class="body">
 356 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
 357 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
 358 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
 359 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
 360
 361 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
 362 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
 363 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
 364 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
 365 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
 366 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
 367 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
 368 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
 369 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
 370 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
 371 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
 372 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
 373 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
 374 going to work.</p>
 375
 376 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
 377 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
 378 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
 379 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
 380 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
 381 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
 382 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
 383 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
 384 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
 385 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
 386 Edu.</p>
 387
 388 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
 389 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
 390 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
 391 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
 392 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
 393 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
 394
 395 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
 396 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
 397 </div>
 398   <div class="tags">
 399
 400
 401
 402    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
 403
 404   </div>
 405  </div>
 406  <div class="padding"></div>
 407
 408  <div class="entry">
 409   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Magnetstripeinnhold_i_billetter_fra_Flytoget_og_Hurtigruten.html">Magnetstripeinnhold i billetter fra Flytoget og Hurtigruten</a></div>
 410   <div class="date">2010-05-21 16:00</div>
 411   <div class="body">
 412 <p>For en stund tilbake kjøpte jeg en magnetkortleser for å kunne
 413 titte på hva som er skrevet inn på magnetstripene til ulike kort.  Har
 414 ikke hatt tid til å analysere mange kort så langt, men tenkte jeg
 415 skulle dele innholdet på to kort med mine lesere.</p>
 416
 417 <p>For noen dager siden tok jeg flyet til Harstad og Hurtigruten til
 418 Bergen.  Flytoget fra Oslo S til flyplassen ga meg en billett med
 419 magnetstripe.  Påtrykket finner jeg følgende informasjon:</p>
 420
 421 <pre>
 422 Flytoget Airport Express Train
 423
 424 Fra - Til        : Oslo Sentralstasjon
 425 Kategori         : Voksen
 426 Pris             : Nok 170,00
 427 Herav mva. 8,00% : NOK 12,59
 428 Betaling         : Kontant
 429 Til - Fra        : Oslo Lufthavn
 430 Utstedt:         : 08.05.10
 431 Gyldig Fra-Til   : 08.05.10-07.11.10
 432 Billetttype      : Enkeltbillett
 433
 434 102-1015-100508-48382-01-08
 435 </pre>
 436
 437 <p>På selve magnetstripen er innholdet
 438 <tt>;E?+900120011=23250996541068112619257138248441708433322932704083389389062603279671261502492655?</tt>.
 439 Aner ikke hva innholdet representerer, og det er lite overlapp mellom
 440 det jeg ser trykket på billetten og det jeg ser av tegn i
 441 magnetstripen.  Håper det betyr at de bruker kryptografiske metoder
 442 for å gjøre det vanskelig å forfalske billetter.</p>
 443
 444 <p>Den andre billetten er fra Hurtigruten, der jeg mistenker at
 445 strekkoden på fronten er mer brukt enn magnetstripen (det var i hvert
 446 fall den biten vi stakk inn i dørlåsen).</p>
 447
 448 <p>Påtrykket forsiden er følgende:</p>
 449
 450 <pre>
 451 Romnummer 727
 452 Hurtigruten
 453 Midnatsol
 454 Reinholdtsen
 455 Petter
 456 Bookingno: SAX69   0742193
 457 Harstad-Bergen
 458 Dep: 09.05.2010 Arr: 12.05.2010
 459 Lugar fra Risøyhamn
 460 Kost: FRO=4
 461 </pre>
 462
 463 <p>På selve magnetstripen er innholdet
 464 <tt>;1316010007421930=00000000000000000000?+E?</tt>.  Heller ikke her
 465 ser jeg mye korrespondanse mellom påtrykk og magnetstripe.</p>
 466 </div>
 467   <div class="tags">
 468
 469
 470
 471    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 472
 473   </div>
 474  </div>
 475  <div class="padding"></div>
 476
 477  <div class="entry">
 478   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</a></div>
 479   <div class="date">2010-05-19 19:00</div>
 480   <div class="body">
 481 <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
 482 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
 483 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
 484 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
 485 into unstable.  The
 486 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
 487 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
 488 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
 489 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
 490 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
 491 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
 492 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
 493
 494 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
 495 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
 496 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
 497 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
 498 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
 499 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
 500 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
 501 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
 502
 503 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
 504 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
 505 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
 506 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
 507 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
 508 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
 509 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
 510
 511 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
 512 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
 513 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
 514 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
 515 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
 516 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
 517 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
 518 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
 519 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
 520 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
 521 on the home directory servers.</p>
 522
 523 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
 524 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
 525 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
 526 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
 527 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
 528 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
 529
 530 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
 531 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
 532 </div>
 533   <div class="tags">
 534
 535
 536
 537    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>.
 538
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 544
 545 <div id="sidebar">
 546
 547
 548
 549
 550
 551 <h2>Archive</h2>
 552 <ul>
 553
 554 <li>2010
 555 <ul>
 556
 557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 558
 559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 560
 561 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 562
 563 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 564
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 566
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 568
 569 </ul></li>
 570
 571 <li>2009
 572 <ul>
 573
 574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 575
 576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 577
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 579
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 581
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 583
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 585
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 587
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 589
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 591
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 593
 594 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 595
 596 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 597
 598 </ul></li>
 599
 600 <li>2008
 601 <ul>
 602
 603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 604
 605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 606
 607 </ul></li>
 608
 609 </ul>
 610
 611
 612
 613 <h2>Tags</h2>
 614 <ul>
 615
 616  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (11)</a></li>
 617
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 619
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 625
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 627
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 641
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 645
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 647
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 667
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