blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</div>
  24       <div class="date">11th June 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>During my work on
  26 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
  27 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
  28 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
  29 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
  30 explanation.</p>
  31
  32 <p><ul>
  33
  34 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
  35 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
  36 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
  37 system depend on tasksel tasks in
  38 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
  39 installation.</li>
  40
  41 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
  42 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
  43 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
  44 at least try to enable it for these services:
  45 <ul>
  46
  47   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
  48     quotas.</li>
  49   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
  50   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
  51   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
  52   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
  53   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
  54
  55 </ul></li>
  56
  57 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
  58 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
  59 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
  60 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
  61
  62 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
  63 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
  64 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
  65
  66 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
  67 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
  68 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
  69 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
  70 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
  71 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
  72
  73 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
  74 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
  75 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
  76 in Wheezy.
  77
  78 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
  79 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
  80 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
  81
  82 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
  83 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
  84 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
  85 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
  86
  87 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
  88 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
  89 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
  90 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
  91
  92 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
  93 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
  94 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
  95
  96 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
  97 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
  98 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
  99
 100 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
 101 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
 102 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
 103 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
 104 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
 105
 106 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
 107 <ul>
 108
 109 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
 110 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
 111 <li>and probably more?</li>
 112 </ul></li>
 113
 114 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
 115 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
 116 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
 117 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
 118 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
 119 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
 120 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
 121 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
 122
 123
 124 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
 125 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
 126 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
 127 use.</li>
 128
 129 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
 130 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
 131 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
 132 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
 133 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
 134
 135 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
 136 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
 137 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
 138 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
 139 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
 140 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
 141
 142 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
 143 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
 144 There are at least three implementations,
 145 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
 146 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
 147 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
 148 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
 149 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
 150 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
 151 given room.</li>
 152
 153 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
 154 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
 155 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
 156 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
 157 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
 158 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
 159 investigated.</li>
 160
 161 </ul></p>
 162
 163 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
 164 version.</p>
 165 </div>
 166
 167       <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>.</div>
 168
 169
 170     </div>
 171
 172
 173
 174
 175     <div id="sidebar">
 176
 177
 178
 179 <h2>Archive</h2>
 180 <ul>
 181
 182 <li>2013
 183 <ul>
 184
 185 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 186
 187 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 188
 189 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 190
 191 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 192
 193 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 194
 195 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 196
 197 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 198
 199 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 200
 201 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (2)</a></li>
 202
 203 </ul></li>
 204
 205 <li>2012
 206 <ul>
 207
 208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 209
 210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 211
 212 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 213
 214 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 215
 216 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 217
 218 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
 219
 220 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 221
 222 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 223
 224 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 225
 226 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 227
 228 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 229
 230 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 231
 232 </ul></li>
 233
 234 <li>2011
 235 <ul>
 236
 237 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 238
 239 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 240
 241 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 242
 243 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 244
 245 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 246
 247 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 248
 249 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 250
 251 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 252
 253 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 254
 255 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 256
 257 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 258
 259 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 260
 261 </ul></li>
 262
 263 <li>2010
 264 <ul>
 265
 266 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 267
 268 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 269
 270 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 271
 272 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 273
 274 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 275
 276 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 277
 278 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 279
 280 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 281
 282 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 283
 284 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 285
 286 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 287
 288 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 289
 290 </ul></li>
 291
 292 <li>2009
 293 <ul>
 294
 295 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 296
 297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 298
 299 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 300
 301 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 302
 303 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 304
 305 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 306
 307 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 308
 309 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 310
 311 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 312
 313 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 314
 315 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 316
 317 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 318
 319 </ul></li>
 320
 321 <li>2008
 322 <ul>
 323
 324 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 325
 326 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 327
 328 </ul></li>
 329
 330 </ul>
 331
 332
 333
 334 <h2>Tags</h2>
 335 <ul>
 336
 337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 338
 339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 340
 341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 342
 343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
 344
 345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
 346
 347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
 348
 349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 350
 351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (85)</a></li>
 352
 353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (139)</a></li>
 354
 355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
 356
 357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
 358
 359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 360
 361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (214)</a></li>
 362
 363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
 364
 365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 366
 367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
 368
 369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (1)</a></li>
 370
 371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
 372
 373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
 374
 375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
 376
 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
 378
 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 380
 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 384
 385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
 386
 387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (235)</a></li>
 388
 389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (153)</a></li>
 390
 391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
 392
 393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 394
 395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
 396
 397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (66)</a></li>
 398
 399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 400
 401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 402
 403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 404
 405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
 406
 407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 408
 409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 410
 411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 412
 413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (30)</a></li>
 414
 415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 416
 417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 418
 419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
 420
 421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 422
 423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (8)</a></li>
 424
 425  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (17)</a></li>
 426
 427  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
 428
 429  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 430
 431  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (38)</a></li>
 432
 433  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 434
 435  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (27)</a></li>
 436
 437 </ul>
 438
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