--- David Bowles
How you can help
I can make the tea...
Well to begin with I'm looking for some reference sites willing to share their experience, preferably secondary schools in the SW (Devon, Dorset or Somerset) running a Linux plus Samba based network.
I can speak only retrospectively of the school I was at in Dorset, of it is of any use to you?
Ideally I also need to set up a demonstration / trial system within the school, enabling them to experience 1st-hand what they've been missing out on all along. The hardware for a small trial should not a major problem for me, but I do need some way of simulating a heavily loaded server -- the equivalent of say 60 or so workstations attempting to log in at roughly the same time.
Why? Why would you want to "simulate" concurrent logins in that way? What is it going to show, other than a (possibly) short lag in authentication? What purpose does that show, other than to prove the point that the server can handle it?
At present the basic system configuration is: At present e-mail is POP-3 based using Outlook as the client;
As Mark has pointed out, this is an interesting way of doing things.
Presumably the principal server software will comprise
Depends what you want to do.
Linux (SuSE) Samba Squid Apache (for internal Intranet and external web presence) Firewall [...suggestions please?]
I'd have said iptables.
Mail server (POP-3, IMAP, Web Mail) [...suggestions please?]
See the thread Matthew and I discussed a few months ago (it's in the archives). Exim/postfix/qmail are all powerful MTAs (Mail Transfer Agent). SuSE still uses Sendmail as the default, I believe. But not that it matters a greatr deal. If you really are gunning for choosing one, go with Exim. Note that an MTA is different for a MDA (Mail Delivery Agent) -- of which you probably want to use Dovecot, which supports IMAP/Pop3 as protocols. Out of the box (under Debian at least) it runs with IMAP, so you're OK, there. Webmail? Squirremail should do you.
Anti-virus (server and e-mail scanning) [...suggestions please?]
No such thing for Linux, although I assume you mean you want to scan (audit?) your workstations? Clamav/SpamAsssassin can all be hooked into your MTA.
Remote Access [...suggestions please?]
Do you *really* want to provide ssh access? If so, there is winSCP for the students, although seriously consider the risk involved in doing so. There are web-based solutions via shit javascript interfaces out there -- which, although awful, do work.
Configuration & management tools [...suggestions please?]
Vim. (Because you don't specify what you're after in terms of management and configuration). Although I suspect you're wanting something along the lines of {web,user}min [1]? Of course, it might be that YAST is all you need....
Backup software [...suggestions please?]
Rsync? Rsync-diff? Will you be doing incremental backups? Will you be backing up to tape? Will you want some kind of file-based mirroring (intermezzo, for example). Will you want to just use cron and scp? What do you want to backup? When?
Workstation software will include Open Office (NB: MS Office retained for the time being) Firefox E-mail client POP-3 and / or IMAP [...suggestions please?]
Mutt. Thunderbird (shudder).
Anti-virus (workstation) [...suggestions please?]
Under windows or Linux? If you mean the latter, there's no such thing. If you mean the former, I couldn't say.
Remote config & management tools [...suggestions please?]
Again, see {web,user}min [1]. My favourite is: ssh foo vim -- Thomas Adam [1] Don't get me started on either of those. I use them as examples only. I don't suggest in anyway that you should use them. "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net "<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish you for all of them at once when you get better. The experience will probably kill you. :)" -- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor) Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com