Re: [K12OSN] roaming profiles in Linux
R P Herrold (herrold@owlriver.com)
Thu, 20 Jun 2002 12:49:14 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Joseph Morelock wrote:
>
> To expand upon David's question...
>
> My school is spread across several buildings, and to reduce the
> amount of traffic across the network, I will be setting up K12LTSP
> servers in several locations. Heavy-use computer labs will have their
> own (or two), and there will be other servers for teachers and for
> support staff. So, the "profiles" would need to be on a different
> (central) server. Also, to complicate things a little further, I would
> like toput all student documents on a different server altogether so I can
> easily back up that server and so they can be reached by all servers
> and by all different types of workstations (Macs, Win9x, Linux). Has
> anyone done this? I know that LDAP is one option, but I am hoping
> that there is a "secret" How-To that someone can point me to.
"secret HOW-TO"
===============
You are basically setting up and ISP without the dialups --
NIS, and Radius, and even ldap each hold parts -- but it may
be quickest to use this schema:
1. Cron a rsync process (say every 2 minutes) with a common
/etc/passwd /etc/groups, /etc/shadow, and /etc/gshadow all
around, taking great care to retain generationed backups -- do
all (ALL) ***ALL*** adds, changes, locks, and unlocks
centrally on one master server which only admins may access
2. Track login/logouts with logger and syslog -r centrally;
set a redundant magic formatted email backup with the same
logging information, and id/parse with procmail, firing off
control scripts talking to logger centrally. This handles
intermittent links
3. Based on log ins/log outs, rsync the /home/userid tree
around when you see the user LEAVE a site, and lock their
password so they may NOT log in elsewhere until the update
base been propigated around; unlock the password when it is
'safe; again
4. Maintain a login/logout site/user state table to spot and
discard stale entries; Add a status message level layer for
redundance.
Rough cut estimated time for working draft is 16 to 32 clock
hours. Let us know if you implement and GPL.
-- Russ Herrold
--
end
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Copyright (C) 2002 R P Herrold
herrold@owlriver.com NIC: RPH5 (US)
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