I am the Network Administartor for a large 1500 user network, and next september I will be taking over two new IT suites. These have yet to be filled, and I would like to do it as cheaply as possible, whilst keeping security and stability high. How feasible do you think it is, and am I creating to much work by switching from NT4.0 to SuSE 7.0?
Certainly creating 1500 users on an SuSE Linux box is not easy
It is, really. There must be a textfile way of doing it. Our "adduser" command used to have a "-batch" option, and after experimentation I worked out the appropriate syntax and each year have manipulated a CSV export from our school's Squirrel database to add new users. Our new version of "adduser", for silly security reasons, forbids this and forces us to use "pw" instead, different format but not much a problem except "for security reasons" it won't accept plaintext passwords, insists on generating its own. Either way, it's easy to generate 1500 users once you have worked out the batch file format that is required. Manipulating the CSV format into pw format is quite fun, a lot of swopping between global replaces in a text editor and column exchanging/insertion etc in a spreadsheet.
Instead of spending Sunday afternoons at your school or IT centre you can sit at home and
... work out what the man pages actually mean. Overall, so long as you have access to a guru, you will end up with a much more powerful system and, if you've budgeted for NT, a lot of spare cash. -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk