--- Phil Driscoll wrote:

On Tuesday 01 March 2005 18:37, Rob Keeling wrote:

...

Has anyone done this, and if so how? Careful (VERY careful!) use of 'wget --recursive' allows you to get

Hmmm. I would have used curl(1) rather than wget, for all of the inherent disasters that you'd incur with using the -r switch to wget. YMMV, etc., etc.

entire websites cached in squid without someone having to physically click on all the links on a site.

There are other ways to do this, mind. It really does depends on the number of pages. -- Thomas Adam ===== "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

Can you help? I'm working with a secondary school whose principal ICT infrastructure comprises some 200 networked workstations talking to three Xenon based servers. Unfortunately this also runs RM's CC3 (Community-Connect Three) proprietary management software glued on top of Windows 2000 Server, which makes it sooooooo sloooooow ...to the point of being unusable at times. Even worse the whole caboodle is supplied via a 'managed services' contract, which means the school has been almost powerless to get the system's dire performance problems fixed. Well I've just heard they'll be freed from this contract in time for the new academic year in September. However the replacement they are being pushed towards is Windows 2003 Server ...unless of course 'yours truly' can persuade them otherwise. So I'd really appreciate your help persuading them Linux is a far better server option ...alas Linux on their workstations would be a step too far (at least for now ;-) How you can help 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. 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. I'd also appreciate any useful tips you might have and sample configuration files appropriate to a school environment. In return I'd be happy to comprehensively document what I do and share this with all. At present the basic system configuration is: Approximately 1200 user accounts in total; Users have a typical home directory allocation of up to 100 MB; Shared curriculum resources currently occupy 15GB in total; Home directories can be accessed remotely via the Internet; Staff can also access curriculum resource remotely; At present e-mail is POP-3 based using Outlook as the client; All the workstations run XP (SP2) on mostly identical hardware; All users are configured to use 'roaming profiles'; A small number of staff connect their laptops to the network; More classrooms are being equipped with interactive white-boards; The servers are networked through two high-speed (1G) switches; These connect to secondary (100M) switches wired to workstations; All workstations have Internet access via a high-speed ASDL link. Workstation hardware comprises mainly identical Celeron 1200 boxes with at least 500MB RAM fitted in each one Presumably the principal server software will comprise Linux (SuSE) Samba Squid Apache (for internal Intranet and external web presence) Firewall [...suggestions please?] Mail server (POP-3, IMAP, Web Mail) [...suggestions please?] Anti-virus (server and e-mail scanning) [...suggestions please?] Remote Access [...suggestions please?] Configuration & management tools [...suggestions please?] Backup software [...suggestions please?] 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?] Anti-virus (workstation) [...suggestions please?] Remote config & management tools [...suggestions please?] Thanks in advance, David Bowles

May I suggest you look at Karoshi? We have a specialist school in devon using it but not on heavy loads. For a secondary school demonstration we have either Swadelands or Dover Grammar but both are in Kent, if you could travel, I'm sure you would be impressed :D The whole system is just point and click, you don't need to setup anything or fiddle with any files etc. It basically just runs...... Any questions just email me . Website is www.karoshi.org.uk Jo *bows head in shame of self promotion......*

David Bowles wrote:

Can you help?

I'm working with a secondary school whose principal ICT infrastructure comprises some 200 networked workstations talking to three Xenon based servers.

Unfortunately this also runs RM's CC3 (Community-Connect Three) proprietary management software glued on top of Windows 2000 Server, which makes it sooooooo sloooooow ...to the point of being unusable at times.

Even worse the whole caboodle is supplied via a 'managed services' contract, which means the school has been almost powerless to get the system's dire performance problems fixed.

Well I've just heard they'll be freed from this contract in time for the new academic year in September. However the replacement they are being pushed towards is Windows 2003 Server ...unless of course 'yours truly' can persuade them otherwise.

So I'd really appreciate your help persuading them Linux is a far better server option ...alas Linux on their workstations would be a step too far (at least for now ;-)

How you can help

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.

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.

I'd also appreciate any useful tips you might have and sample configuration files appropriate to a school environment. In return I'd be happy to comprehensively document what I do and share this with all.

At present the basic system configuration is: Approximately 1200 user accounts in total; Users have a typical home directory allocation of up to 100 MB; Shared curriculum resources currently occupy 15GB in total; Home directories can be accessed remotely via the Internet; Staff can also access curriculum resource remotely;

Running SSH will allow remote access in a cross platform way. Under Windows WinSCP is freeware.

At present e-mail is POP-3 based using Outlook as the client;

This is an odd way to do things, especially if the email is winding up on a network store anyway.

All the workstations run XP (SP2) on mostly identical hardware;

How do you get SP2 to work correctly with XP Pro machines joined to a domain? IME trying this leads to some "interesting" problems.

All users are configured to use 'roaming profiles';

You really want to avoid this in a school environment. It has several problems. 1) wastage of bandwidth. 2) data protection issues WRT what may end up being stored on workstations, 3) it is indeterminate what will happen when the same user logs into more than one workstation at the same time. "Folder Redirection" is a far better way to do things IMHO.

A small number of staff connect their laptops to the network; More classrooms are being equipped with interactive white-boards; The servers are networked through two high-speed (1G) switches; These connect to secondary (100M) switches wired to workstations; All workstations have Internet access via a high-speed ASDL link.

Workstation hardware comprises mainly identical Celeron 1200 boxes with at least 500MB RAM fitted in each one

Presumably the principal server software will comprise Linux (SuSE) Samba

preexec scripts are very useful when combined with Folder Redirection. Since they allow for "automatic" configuation of program settings, desktops, start menus, etc.

Squid Apache (for internal Intranet and external web presence) Firewall [...suggestions please?] Mail server (POP-3, IMAP, Web Mail) [...suggestions please?]

My preference is Courier. Since the mail is stored in a user's home directory. With both the web interface and the IMAP server giving similar views of the mailbox.

Anti-virus (server and e-mail scanning) [...suggestions please?] Remote Access [...suggestions please?] Configuration & management tools [...suggestions please?] Backup software [...suggestions please?]

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?]

Thunderbird...

Anti-virus (workstation) [...suggestions please?] Remote config & management tools [...suggestions please?]

Thanks in advance,

-- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE Aided School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In [suse-linux-uk-schools] Reference schools in SW & config help please? Paul Graydon wrote: | In conjuction with a properly setup | Cygwin you could even get your servers X windows screen up on a Windows | box. I've been looking into things like k12ltsp as a way of providing thin clients in what has the potential to become a 2nd IT room, still early days yet. In the meantime, I'd like to experiment with graphical access from my win98 workstations to the suse 9.1 server, or a planned k12ltsp application server. VNC seems the easiest, but whilst it's OK for my remote management I fear the bandwidth would be problematic if we try to run a class session that way, yes? I'd prefer to do this through ssh, but we can leave that for the time being if that's a step too far! X/cygwin seems the way to go, but I see a couple of problems, 1) what config settings do I need on the SuSE box to get it to talk to the new x servers, 2) which of the vast number of cygwin packages do I need to install on my clients? I recall Michael Brown of Fen Systems putting together some zip file to do this, but can't find this anymore. - -- Miles Berry Deputy Head St Ives School Haslemere www.stiveshaslemere.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCOTqmr4l0LSzscoQRAkWIAJ971aHtcC5/HXgBYiExv4YxWhuOJQCbBSqR t+YqpcJoZ0a6/IrsfA8/LzQ= =fynK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

A BIG BIG thank you to everyone who's replied to me so far ...and also to those still pondering my request for help but not yet got around to responding -- do please keep those replies coming. I so much appreciate the support I'm getting, which once again demonstrates the Open Source / Linux / Flossie community really is 'a community' in the truest sense of this word. :-) Here's a some background on me and my involvement in education to date: I've been working with PC-based IT systems all my working life (at 51 I'm no spring chicken <VBG>). My my skill base ranges from database programming in the early days (BASIC and 6502 assembler for the Apple II - I burnt myself out doing that!); through network installations (early 3Com and MS Lan Manager); systems design; and management consulting (both general business and IT integration). I'm also disabled; not physically but with some neurological issues including Tourette Syndrome (no I don't swear ...except when I'm really really cross!!!). Now I've had these conditions since early childhood, however I didn't know this until just nine years ago when I stumbled across a description of their symptoms while surfing the web, and realised "That's me!". This got me involved in supporting others coping with this and similar issues, especially families whose children have these conditions and all too often have a really difficult time in school as a consequence. Now this fired my interest in education, but not just from the point of view of supporting individual children with neurological issues. I'm also fascinated by how schools work from a 'management systems' perspective. Here I'm referring not just to 'IT systems', but to 'systems' within their wider context. At that time I was also looking for new challenge, preferably outside the world of commerce where I'd been working for so long. So where better place to focus on 'career-wise' than education and schools management in particular. Big mistake. ...well actually I'm still reserving judgement on this. But I can't hold off for much longer, as seven years later I still haven't found an appropriate niche for myself within this field -- at least not one that's open to people who come in from outside the teaching profession. Yes I've done a small amount of consulting with some DfES backed initiatives. However it seems schools operate as a strictly 'closed shop' at any level above 'technician'. As far as management work is concerned this is strictly closed to anyone who's not already a 'qualified teacher' with years clocked up at the chalk-face. Not one to be put off I spent a whole year, back in 2000, on an initial teacher-training course. However I soon discovered people with disabilities are generally not at all welcome within the profession. Indeed I was routinely subject to the most blatant discrimination that seems to stem from a deeply embedded cultural prejudice. This probably explains why people who have disabilities of any kind are so grossly underrepresented within teaching ...much like the Metropolitan Police and recruitment from ethnic minorities prior to the Lawrence Report. As for when I was working in the world of commerce, well this was never an issue. Now I'm no quitter. Indeed while many people with a background in IT often talk about wanting to work with schools, I've actually set out to do this. Furthermore I've been plugging away at finding a way in for well over half a decade now. But I'm running out of options and soon I'll have no choice but to admit opportunities for outsiders wanting to work in schools above poorly paid 'technician' or 'Teaching Assistant' grades are virtually non-existent ...not unless you can afford to do this for free as a School Governor. I'd hate have to admit that all along I've been backing the wrong horse in a fixed race! Not that I'd mind so much if school management systems were on the whole well designed and appropriate to the needs of the students and staff they are meant to serve. Alas I've discovered this is all too often not the case. From a management perspective too many schools seem to operate in a time-warp, one that's about 30 years behind the times compared with the world of commerce where to date I've spent most of my working life. Here's an IT related example: Within both schools where I did my teaching practice it took more than ten days for someone to set me up with an account on the school network. This required lots of shuffling bits of paper in and out of various pigeonholes in the staff-room. Not that this account was much use to me in one school, as their network promptly went down ...for a whole month! ...I kid you not!!! Worse still, this took down every PC within the school as well. Plus this school also suffered massive data-loss, including much of their assessed GCSE and GNVQ student course-work -- here I'm talking about a large secondary school with around 1,500 students. All my offers of assistance were turned down. Why? Because I didn't have "the appropriate qualifications"(?) to work on their system whatever these might be. They simply weren't interested, not unless I could produce a piece of paper that proved I'd been on "the right networking course". As for all the years I'd spent running my own successful network installation business? Well this counted for absolutely nothing as in their eyes as to them I was just 'a rookie trainee teacher'. Are network crashes on this scale one-offs? Unfortunately not. At an even bigger school where I also did teaching practice (with approximately 2,500 students), I learned that sometime afterwards they suffered a similar period of network downtime ...once again taking down all their PCs in the process. Seems like this is not unusual. So what's the point of this post? Well as I said earlier I'm not a quitter and I've still not lost all hope of finding my niche in 'Teacheland' or at least within some organisation that works closely with schools. So once again can you help me? ...or failing this can you point me in the direction of a man or woman who can? David Bowles PS: At the school with the sloooooow RM based system, I'm there as an unpaid part-time volunteer TA (Teaching Assistant). The great thing about this is from a systems perspective I get to experience first-hand how schools work 'from the inside'. Mostly I just help out in the Learning Support Department. However some senior managers are beginning to accept that I actually know a thing or two about computers. PPS: By '...a sloooooow RM based system', I mean really slow. Like the other morning it took me 14 minutes to get from pushing the power button of a PC in the ICT suite, through logging in and navigating to a small text file on the curriculum server, to loading and displaying this in Windows 'Notepad'. To date my record to get from 'power on' to a usable Windows 'Start Menu' is 35 minutes!!! :-( ...hence my strong interest in 'log in' times.

Can you help?

I'm working with a secondary school whose principal ICT infrastructure comprises some 200 networked workstations talking to three Xenon based servers.

Unfortunately this also runs RM's CC3 (Community-Connect Three)...

On 12 Mar 2005 at 22:11, David Bowles wrote:

Big mistake.

...well actually I'm still reserving judgement on this. But I can't hold off for much longer, as seven years later I still haven't found an appropriate niche for myself within this field -- at least not one that's open to people who come in from outside the teaching profession.

Yes I've done a small amount of consulting with some DfES backed initiatives. However it seems schools operate as a strictly 'closed shop' at any level above 'technician'. As far as management work is concerned this is strictly closed to anyone who's not already a 'qualified teacher' with years clocked up at the chalk-face.

I work for a 6th form college, actually the place I did my A-levels at. I'm 24 now, have spend 4 years working here (doesn't seem that long to me), after having spend a year and a half in industry, in a slightly more responsible role than the one I hold currently. Coming in to education I was struck by a slight sense of 'two staff', them and us: "I'm a technician. I've got no degree to my name. Thus I am not as good as them", however that attitude was more from the old guard of the staff, and probably wasn't helped by my comparible youth. Most are fully accepting and treat me as a human being. Having served on the "Conditions of Service" forum, I got the impression this two staff attitude was one they've been steadily eroding for a long time now with fair success. Talking with colleagues in other schools / colleges, I get the impression that its still a far flung issue. Recent events here make me think it occurs at another level entirely, "three staffs", with cleaners forming the lowest rank (several teachers walked past a cleaner struggling to get a waxing machine through a doorway, before I got there to hold the doors open for her.)

But I'm running out of options and soon I'll have no choice but to admit opportunities for outsiders wanting to work in schools above poorly paid 'technician' or 'Teaching Assistant' grades are virtually non-existent ...not unless you can afford to do this for free as a School Governor. I'd hate have to admit that all along I've been backing the wrong horse in a fixed race!

I'm not convinced there is much space at all in education for anything other than poorly paid technicians. We are all that seem to exist. Education relies on a couple of types of characters for IT support: Enthusiasts and poor-quality-workers (some overlap between the two). Most of the good ones fit in the former category. We know the pay is appaling on an industry scale but we continue to work in education, not for the money, but out of enthusiams, striving to do our best with the limited resources we get. Taking time to learn the skills necessary to support a wide variety of aspects. I'd argue that there are few IT staff more multi-skilled than those that work in education. The others are the ones that can't seem to get a job at a higher wage and are doing the work because its a job, more than anything else. The one-click wonders, who can setup a network purely because there are wizards that you can follow. When things go wrong... well less said the better. Likewise I've heard so many disaster stories relating to networks in education its a wonder users don't end up with an extreme fear of networks.

Not that I'd mind so much if school management systems were on the whole well designed and appropriate to the needs of the students and staff they are meant to serve. Alas I've discovered this is all too often not the case. From a management perspective too many schools seem to operate in a time-warp, one that's about 30 years behind the times compared with the world of commerce where to date I've spent most of my working life.

Where is education expected to get these skills from? Headmasters and principles are traditionally former teaching staff. As are their deputies as well, for that matter. Its a nice thing in some regards, after all most teachers got into education with some desire to teach, and the attitude that goes with it. However, these days with such tight budgets and the like, whats really needed are business men at the top level to drag education kicking and screaming into the real world. I'd still strongly argue that the deputies should be former teachers though. I don't want education to be turned into a business and risk it losing the 'public sector feel', after all the kids are what is most important. However a certain element of ruthlessness and strong business practices are sorely needed. We had a consultation session amongst staff about 6 months after I started. I made several observations based on what I'd learnt in the mere year and a half I'd spent in commerce, and the comments came as a large shock to some of the members of staff, given I was thinking about stuff in a completely different way to them. I've no doubt, now, that I'm totally out of touch with the commerce way of doing things, and am probably stuck in that self same education outlook I got frustrated with when I started. Our current principle is much more like a business man in attitude. He came in 3 1/2 year ago, completely tore down the existing staffing structure and rebuilt it from scratch (with just one redundancy), and changed fundamental attitudes. The result is a leaner, far more efficient running staff with a shorter top-to-bottom span. The systems he put in place to control spending and budgets have resulted in us moving from a dangerous financial health category (about a year of bankrupcy) into a strong financial health category.

Here's an IT related example: Within both schools where I did my teaching practice it took more than ten days for someone to set me up with an account on the school network. This required lots of shuffling bits of paper in and out of various pigeonholes in the staff-room.

*shudder* that doesn't surprise me though. Here, when a staff member starts they get a starter pack. In that pack is a copy of the AUP with instructions to leave it in the Network Managers pigeon hole. Accounts are usually added the same day the AUP is handed in, at worst within a day or two.

Not that this account was much use to me in one school, as their network promptly went down ...for a whole month! ...I kid you not!!! Worse still, this took down every PC within the school as well. Plus this school also suffered massive data-loss, including much of their assessed GCSE and GNVQ student course-work -- here I'm talking about a large secondary school with around 1,500 students.

This is the kind of thing I detest. Nothing should make a network go down this badly, unless the staff aren't capable of making proper diagnosis of ailments, or aren't capable of implementing solutions. In a worse case scenario we could rebuild all our servers in a week, recover just the documents off backup, and probably have everything back up and running by the middle of the next week, and that's assuming network issues were so serious as to be irreprable without a clean install.

All my offers of assistance were turned down. Why? Because I didn't have "the appropriate qualifications"(?) to work on their system whatever these might be. They simply weren't interested, not unless I could produce a piece of paper that proved I'd been on "the right networking course". As for all the years I'd spent running my own successful network installation business? Well this counted for absolutely nothing as in their eyes as to them I was just 'a rookie trainee teacher'.

Pieces of paper are far too important these days. I've got 5 1/2 years working experience, supporting Unix, Linux, Novell and MS networks. Can I get even get to interview stage? Can I heck. I've taken advice from numerous agencies, and whilst my work history and experience is impressive, the comments they get back from applications is that I lack the necessary qualifications. (hence I'm doing my CCNA and LPI qualifications at the moment.) God forbid that experience should actually count for something, that it might actually mean more than bits of paper. Sure, someone can tick the right boxes on an exam sheet but having theoretical operating knowledge of a system means nothing compared to knowing what it does in the real world, or how to translate that knowledge into something practical. In a lot of cases I see jobs advertised where they're asking for degree qualified staff to do tasks that I could do in my sleep, without even having a degree, and could easily have managed on exiting college with just my A-levels. (and indeed, as I proved with my first job. I was there as a temp, got employed full-time even though I had none of the 'degree and then some' qualifications they wanted) Trying to persuade people in the education environment is just as hard as far as I've found as it is to persuade those in external business.

So what's the point of this post? Well as I said earlier I'm not a quitter and I've still not lost all hope of finding my niche in 'Teacheland' or at least within some organisation that works closely with schools.

So once again can you help me? ...or failing this can you point me in the direction of a man or woman who can?

I'm not entirely certain what kind of role you're looking to adopt, to be honest. To get 'in' to education environement just seems to need some steady plugging away at things. Working in IT support puts me in a suituation where I'm in regular contact with the teachers, and that seems to have aided my integration into the faculty, but beyond that I couldn't say. I do know we'd probably take offence in this department if other 'non-network' staff started trying to poke their noses in, regardless of qualifications, but then its a matter of inter-department pride that we have a good, fully functioning, virtually never down network (last years teaching time downtime comes out at something like 3 hours.) There are government approved firms out there that make a nice bit of money out of consultation work in the eductaion / public sector. If you've got skills in that regard you may well feel that serves both your desires. However, again, you're likely to hit the barrier relating to having a few letters you can stick behind your name.

David Bowles

PPS: By '...a sloooooow RM based system', I mean really slow. Like the other morning it took me 14 minutes to get from pushing the power button of a PC in the ICT suite, through logging in and navigating to a small text file on the curriculum server, to loading and displaying this in Windows 'Notepad'. To date my record to get from 'power on' to a usable Windows 'Start Menu' is 35 minutes!!! :-( ...hence my strong interest in 'log in' times.

Wow.. even when we had user profiles switched on it never took that long. Now we've got them turned off I can literally go from power on to desktop in under a minute and a half on this workstation, and this box loads apache/php/mysql/ftp servers on it (for intranet development) ----- Paul Graydon Network Technician Haywards Heath College http://www.hhc.ac.uk (01444) 456281 "Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner

On 15 Mar 2005 at 14:28, linuxgirlie wrote:

...

This is the kind of thing I detest. Nothing should make a network go down this badly, unless >the staff aren't capable of making proper diagnosis of ailments, or aren't capable of >implementing solutions. In a worse case scenario we could rebuild all our servers in a week, recover just the documents off backup, and probably have everything back up and running by >the middle of the next week, and that's assuming network issues were so serious as to be >irreprable without a clean install.

A week?!? How many servers do you have? I have 6 and it would take me no more than a day (maybe less than that) to re-install from scratch the whole lot. Not sure about work though, as I have never had to do it, but the systems would be up and running.

Jo

We have a 3 or 4 main Novell servers, and several other small servers doing various little bits, but none of those are mission critical as it were, and would be ignored (disconnected possibly) in the case of major network problems. I'm amazed if you can manage to recreate all your servers, recreat all users, log in rights, individual folder rights, user groups, and their file rights, printers, print queues, print accounting and so on and so forth in a day, unless you're running a much smaller network. We have around 1300~1400 users on ours, and I was literally talking worst case scenario (server system backups being useless, but assuming documents were backed up successfully) Sure, between the three of us here we could install Novell and get it running on all our servers in the space of a day, but getting everything else setup takes time, and allowing a few hours for the NDS trees to sync properly. I'm not certain it would take a week, but that's what we feel comfortable in saying is our minimum. Like you, we've never had to do it, thus we make conservative estimates. Our usual comment to staff is that its more like 2 weeks to ensure everything is setup properly, though that's just to give us plenty of breathing space. We always give out conservative estimates, that way if we get things working quicker people believe that you've done your hardest to get things going as soon as possible (which we do), and if you have problems you haven't got anyone breathing down your neck with such urgency. ----- Paul Graydon Network Technician Haywards Heath College http://www.hhc.ac.uk (01444) 456281 "Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner

On 15 Mar 2005 at 15:35, linuxgirlie wrote:

I use Karoshi (www.karoshi.org.uk), So I would only have to install basic Mandrake and then Karoshi on top. My record is 25 minutes. So thats 25*6 = 150minutes. Then I can either bring back all the users from backup....or worse case I would have to bulk user create. As this is from a Comma Seperated File, I would load it up in our bulk user creator and it would take about 5 minutes (guessimate) per year. All the permissions, groups etc etc are already setup by Karoshi so no worries there. Print quenes come back from backup, unless backup is gone, and then obviously this would have to be done by hand so will take longer. Work comes back from backup, but not sure of the timing of this. So basically the servers/users/system will be there in a day but work not (as I am not sure on the timing of this- a couple of day maybe?!) We have about 1000-1200 users on the network this is staff and students.

Basically Karoshi sets up the whole system with everything in place, all I have to do is bring back the users and thier work :)

Our print server went down the other day, it took me 30 minutes to get it up running and working again, including bringing back all print quenes etc. and it first print out.

Jo

I'll confess to being impressed to some extent. I think about the quickest we can install Novell itself is about 40~50 minutes, before patches etc. On my home box I seem to remember Mandrake taking a lot longer to install, even from DVD, but then it was installing with quite a few of the software options, which you wouldn't really need on a network server. I'm assuming for a Karoshi setup you'd be installing just about the bare basics? I must confess to being curious why Mandrake was chosen as the backend, and not Red Hat, given that Mandrake is basically a series of enhancements and changes to the Red Hat distro. Logic would suggest some of those are critical changes that are needed for Karoshi? Bulk user creation is a fairly safe practice in Novell from CSV, though we have experienced peculiarities in the past. As to rights, ours are very strict. I'm not sure how strict yours are, but we pretty much run on a basis of deny, and only permit grudgingly, thus we're granting rights down to sub-sub-sub (etc) folder level. We had a few issues last week as a consequence of a major change we needed to make to the structure. Result (due to a 'known', but impossible to find unless you're suffering from it, Novell bug) was that everyone had access everywhere, hardly satisfactory! As a consequence all rights, except critical ones, were removed, and all were recreated from scratch, which took just over saturday morning to setup and double check to ensure no one had rights they shouldn't have, were part of the right user groups, each groups assigned the right workstation and ensure that workstations were assigned to the policies. With a new server installation, with a new tree, all workstations across campus (400) would need to be unregistered with the network, then re-registered, before they could be imported into the tree and have workstation profiles assigned to them. Once this has been done, Novell client then allows you to have dynamic user creation on the local workstation, something that is all but essential with Windows 2000 and Windows XP workstations, along with being able to remotely lock down workstations (ensures that its almost impossible for a student to mess them up). I don't know how easy it would be to perform such an operation using Linux workstations. Our past experiements with LDAP and a Novell servers haven't been successful (using Novell 5.1, with its flakey LDAP.) After upgrading Novell over the summer, LDAP will be working fine, and Linux'll be spreading a little bit in our network. ----- Paul Graydon Network Technician Haywards Heath College http://www.hhc.ac.uk (01444) 456281 "Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner

--- linuxgirlie wrote:

Karoshi has been moved to suse, in the past we had problems with the fact that certain files would look for certain paths, for example in mandrake its /mnt/cdrom and in suse its /media/cdrom, but these have now been removed. As long as you have KDE installed it should be fine.....I think :P

That's not a problem, that's a good sign in some ways, because it means that the said distro at least adheres to the LSB spec, and doesn't create its own structure. The use of mount-points under /mnt was always in breech of the FSH anyway -- as /mnt (on traditional UNIX systems) was always used as a single, transient mount-point. /media now defines those mount-points which are removeable. So things like : /media/{floppy,cdrom,dvd} etc. What you should be doing is not relying on making assumed guesses, but looking at the mount-point system dynamically. If you have the values hard-coded, what happens if I suddenly decide that I want my CDROM mounted to /cdrom (a not unreasonable situation, either)? -- Thomas Adam. "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

--- Paul Graydon wrote: [..snip reply..]

I must confess to being curious why Mandrake was chosen as the backend, and not Red Hat, given that Mandrake is basically a series of enhancements and changes to the Red Hat distro. Logic would suggest some of those are critical changes that are needed for Karoshi?

s/Red Hat/Fedora/g; I wouldn't have said it mattered one iota. I would imagine the reason it were chosen was because it is what is familiar to the developer(s) of Karoshi. Portability should be such that I should be able to take the project and run it on any Linux distribution I see fit... heh, now *there's* a test for the developers... While it is true that Mandrake is based on Redhat (initially) they work sufficiently different such that the two are separate in their own right, which each distro doing slightly Different Things (tm) from one another.

Bulk user creation is a fairly safe practice in Novell from CSV, though we have experienced peculiarities in the past.

I'm not surprised.

As to rights, ours are very strict. I'm not sure how strict yours are, but we pretty much run on a basis of deny, and only permit grudgingly, thus we're granting rights down to sub-sub-sub (etc) folder level.

Depends what your $PARANOIA is like, but I would probably be just as cautious, giving staff slightly more access where applicable, etc. [..snip..] -- Thomas Adam. "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