Petter Reinholdtsen

I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and publish the third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze. If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and installing new machines, check it out. If you need a software solution for your school, check it out too. The full announcement is available on the project announcement list.

I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):

• It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from 10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after the installation.
• Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.
• The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all disabled queues are restarted every hour. This should cut down on the amount of manual administration needed for printers.
• The set of initial users have been changed. Now a personal user for the local system administrator is created during installation instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users, and this user is granted administrative privileges using group membership. This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep up to date on the system.

The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home. I will use it look for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the final Squeeze release is published.

Next weekend the project organise a developer gathering in Oslo. We will continue the work on the Squeeze version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version. Perhaps I will see you there?

Since the Lenny version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux, a feature to save power have been included. It is as simple as it is practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again in the morning. This is done using the shutdown-at-night Debian package.

To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts. For Debian Edu, This is done in LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and shut it down if it is. If the hardware in question is supported by the nvram-wakeup package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +- 10 minutes. If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to try to turn on the client. The wake-on-lan option is only documented and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.

It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like the common setup for a classroom. The nvram-wakeup method only work for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock. I've seen old machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot. If you have one of those, you have to turn on the computer manually.

The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can also be used outside the Debian Edu environment. For those without a central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file /etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night to enable it. Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?