We've just done a nice conversion job this morning and talked the school out of spending a shed load of money on MS Office for 86 new machines and using OpenOffice instead. Inevitably, real soon now, someone is going to ask about doing 'Access' style stuff. So, I've just had a play with a Windoze box here, installed MyODBC and set up a datasource pointing to MySQL on one of my SuSE boxes. I fiddled around in the datasources bit of OpenOffice and then, by pressing F4, I get into a mode where I can see my database, fiddle about, run queries etc. For anyone wanting to have a play, note that the above was extremely easy, and there were no problems! I have yet to work out if and how to use the data in a document or to connect a form to it. Since my only use for Access is as an emetic, can anyone advise me as to whether or not this is the same kind of stuff you do in Access, and do we have a fairly close match on functionality? Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
Dear All,
Hi. With Linux making positive inroads into the education sector, we have
been experimenting with implementing Linux into our NT Domain network. We
currently run an RM Connect 2.4 network, containing a mixture of 95 and
98/98SE machines - these run MS Office and Internet applications, as well as
multimedia programs.
What I want to do is use some of the older machines, install Linux and
simply use them for Office (SO5.2) and Internet (Mozilla) - This is all very
easy to do, simply by installing SO5.2 to the local disk and then pointing
Mozilla through our proxy server - this works and we have got this far on
our test machine.
Now then, the next bit....
When users log into their accounts on an Win95/98 machine their user area
(which is held on either Server 1 or Server 2) is mapped to a local drive,
and becomes 'N:\MyWork' - users can then access and save their files as if
it were a local drive.
User names are held on the NT Servers as well.
What we want to do, is let the user log into an Linux machine (SuSE8.0Pro) -
authenticate their username and password from the NT user database, and then
map their user space to a drive on the Linux machine. Pupils then being able
to load Office documents into SO5.2
I know this can be done with Samba, but can anyone offer any advice.
Thanks in advance,.
Gareth Edmondson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Driscoll"
We've just done a nice conversion job this morning and talked the school out of spending a shed load of money on MS Office for 86 new machines and using OpenOffice instead. Inevitably, real soon now, someone is going to ask about doing 'Access' style stuff.
So, I've just had a play with a Windoze box here, installed MyODBC and set up a datasource pointing to MySQL on one of my SuSE boxes. I fiddled around in the datasources bit of OpenOffice and then, by pressing F4, I get into a mode where I can see my database, fiddle about, run queries etc. For anyone wanting to have a play, note that the above was extremely easy, and there were no problems!
I have yet to work out if and how to use the data in a document or to connect a form to it. Since my only use for Access is as an emetic, can anyone advise me as to whether or not this is the same kind of stuff you do in Access, and do we have a fairly close match on functionality?
Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
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I can give no advice but I listen in great anticipation. As I understand - the latest versions of samba come with winbind which enable linux to authenticate anything (provided that authentication can be done via PAM modules) agaist an NT server/domain. I understand SUSE8.0 has the correct version of samba for this - but may not come with winbind compiled so you (we?) we may need to get our hands dirty. I think this facility has enourmous potential for schools which have so far gone down the NT route, and would a useful stepping stone to moving server services from NT to Linux.
From what I have read - you (we?) are almost certain to mess up the PAM files and lock ourselves out of LINUX so a startup/boot disk is essential.
I certainly have had no wish to duplicate all our accounts on the LINUX box together with shadow password files and various hacks to keep passwords synchronised. I'm not convinced about SO5.2 - it is rather 'old' and 'tacky' (sorry to all those who think otherwise). I do believe that the new Openoffice has real potential - and the new versions of Netscape (v7) seem quite slick too. You may be better off running a LTSP on a good machine rather than getting old machines to limp along with insuffient RAM, Hard Disk space and CPU speed to make local applications attractive to use. I'm still waiting for the noddy guide to get it all working. On Fri 24 May, Gareth Edmondson wrote:
User names are held on the NT Servers as well.
What we want to do, is let the user log into an Linux machine (SuSE8.0Pro) - authenticate their username and password from the NT user database, and then map their user space to a drive on the Linux machine. Pupils then being able to load Office documents into SO5.2
I know this can be done with Samba, but can anyone offer any advice.
Thanks in advance,.
Gareth Edmondson
What we want to do, is let the user log into an Linux machine (SuSE8.0Pro) - authenticate their username and password from the NT user database, and then map their user space to a drive on the Linux machine.
I can give no advice but I listen in great anticipation.
Me too
I certainly have had no wish to duplicate all our accounts on the LINUX box together with shadow password files and various hacks to keep passwords synchronised.
We are doing this successfully, but in the other direction, i.e. the master authorisation system is Unix and we authenticate Windows systems against that. For plain Samba mounts, it's fine with no smbpasswd files: one single Unix authorisation "passwd file" system has worked for five years BUT we have had to enable-plain-text-password on all Windows machines, a different registry mod for each issue. No problem, actually, the only hacks have been pupils using Cain to decode local .pwl files, and that's their problem, not mine, it can only affect people who use Windows machines, and only 95/98/me too. But last year we put in a w2k/wts server to use with Rdesktop, and to authorise rdesktop logins to this we had eventually to bite the bullet, copy the password file system into a parallel "smbpasswd" file and insert a new "passwd" command that calls both the old passwd and smbpasswd so as to keep the two password files (both of course on the Unix server) in synchronisation. The w2k server is "joined" to the Samba server's domain, and is definitely and rightly subservient to it! Since the parallel file has passwords that are reversibly encrypted, our security is now lower, but that's inevitable if people want to use Windows software. Not much lower, really, as the smbpasswd file is only accessible to root. Sometime during the next five years I might change the root password from the dictionary word it has been for the last five or ten. -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-822698, mobile 07816 821659 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk
Hyia Alan, Thanks for the reply. Several months ago, I did begin messing around with Suse7.2Pro, the WinBind module and Samba. I got as far as messing the PAM modules up before having to rebuild the machine. Heheheheheh, I didn't bother with it again for a long time. Now being up to Suse8.0, my curiosity is once again in full flow - (exam season). I will keep playing on my test machine to see what I can come up with. Best wishes for now, Gareth
participants (4)
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Alan Davies -
Christopher Dawkins -
Gareth Edmondson -
Phil Driscoll