The learning curve is furtuntely getting muc smaller.... If you are settuing up a new system, you''ll run into few problems I'f you are upgrading, the story might be different. I learned a lesson that I think many can learn from. I inherited an old ltsp setup (5-6 years), where the most knowledagble teacher had installed webmin.... it made sense at the time I guess, but he was unaware at how webmin, the user db /etc/group and /etc/passswd as well as the gui work very differently from each other. Coupled wit that, if your user is not connected with a unique primary group you are screwed. Then if your /home/$user is not ownerd user.user throughout hist home dir, you are screwed. Finallly if the user is accidentally deleted from webmin or /etc/group man...... yoou are REALLY screwed.
This is what happens: Adding a user from the gui.... if he didnt' already exist, perfec, if he did... u need to either get the correct uid and gid in place. and make sure his dir, if already exists is owned by home with his ownership. In a school with 200+ students + teachers... this can be a painful time consuming job (Took me aboiut 50 hours in total for about 200 users, but I also delted all the old users. I then creatded to fat environments, one for yonger folk, another for senior folk, made a lot of terminals fat.... and lo and behold... which gods one should thannk I'm not sure,,,, But that being a serious worst case scenario and being able to fix it all under a week + add 10 terminals.... they were baffled. I said... well i guess now u know why u asked for ltsp to begin with.... just make sure no one absolutely no one touches it other than user db gui and adding MAC addresses where necessary.... a gui for that would be really appreciated.. I'd make it myself... if someone helped me out when I got stuck kind regards, David Van Assche On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 5:13 AM, David Groos <djgr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Dave, > > Sounds like you are new to Edubuntu? Welcome. > > I've been using Ubuntu running the LTSP system (thin clients) for 3+ years > now in my classroom of 20 or so computers--actually support 3 classes. > Since the start I've used LTSP, never used local installs--actually we use > recycled machines and it's easiest just removing the HD. Our first year we > used pure thin client setups where practically all processing was done on > the server. That was cool except when it came to using a java-based > application called CmapTools. Only 2 clients could use that software, > barely, and with another user the whole server would become unresponsive. > Flash content was pretty unacceptable as well. > > Thus we moved to using 'local apps' the next year. One can install a > program into the chroot, then tell the client to use these installed > programs, locally. That year we ran Firefox, CmapTools, and it seems like > a few other things locally. It worked so well, we ran things as localapps > last year as well (but with 10.04, not 9.04 like the previous year). Well, > this year we made the leap to 'fatcleints' where basically everything is > run locally. This means that now we can use the computer-interface probes > like LabPro. Things are going smoothly this year. We did make sure that > all of our P4's have a gig of RAM, though and are at least 2.2 GHz. > Anyway, this is a long way of saying that you may want to look into fat > clients or at least localapps instead of thin clients. They are all part > of the LTSP system, however. > > For managing your computers (like what a teacher needs to do, sometimes > sharing screens or locking screens for example) I would recommend looking > into epoptes--"Overseer". You'll find that at epoptes.org. I think that > Thin Client Manager and Pessalus haven't been maintained--someone correct > me if I'm wrong. > > About making user accounts, I didn't really understand your concerns. I > finally got LDAP working this year (!) but before this I've just created > the accounts using the 'users and groups' app or through the command line. > However, at the start of the year to import lots of users I used > webmin--always been happy with it for the limited things I ask it to do. > I've never really had to do anything special with user accounts, they just > work like one would expect. I've dabbled with SAMBA sharing for shared > folders and it has worked OK but haven't done much with it lately. > > My experience is that there's a big learning curve to get everything > working like you want it, but when it is, it is painless! > > Good luck, > David G > > > > On Oct 27, 2011, at 7:29 PM, Dave Wilson wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I have a project underway which refers to a room of 30 machines, having > about 160 users over a weekly period. > > > > I have downoaded 11.10 and used it in live mode successfully and then > installed it on the hard disk. It works well, but I am considering the real > deployment of this system. > > > > I intend to go for a system based on the use of two LAN cards, but I am > not too worried about the hardware but more of the practical details of > managing a network of this type and what is needed. I would be grateful for > comments and recommendations under the following headings. > > > > (1) I wish to give the users access to both a home folder and access > possibly to other Read Only folders I designate. I believe this is > controlled by NFS. Is this correct ? Is this already involved ? Asuming > that this is the case what mechanism do the clients use at their desktops > to access home folders etc ? > > > > (2) I understand that the Thin Client Manager is used for general client > control and calls upon Pessulus to lockdown clients. Is all this provided > already or is it necessary to download the manager? > > > > (3) There would appear to be a lot of things going on here that have > affects in various places and for example I can see that the creation of a > new user would need to have an effect on nfs in terms of designating a new > home folder etc. Is there a webmin type of piece of software that handles > the integration of these functions so that the addition of a new user > automatically causes the changes required? > > > > I would be very grateful for any comments that can point me in the right > direction. > > > > Regards > > > > > > Dave > > > > > > > > Sent from my iPad > > -- > > ubuntu-education mailing list > > ubuntu-educat...@lists.ubuntu.com > > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-education > > > -- > ubuntu-education mailing list > ubuntu-educat...@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-education >
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