LTSPManager

Summary

We will create a nice, gui management tool for LTSP, and Edubuntu administrators to manage their thin client network.

Rationale

Administering an LTSP/Edubuntu server, or modifying it from the default config currently requires directly editing config files. This causes several problems, as several of the config files (dhcpd.conf being an example) have complicated structures, and it's far to easy for first time administrators to get it wrong, and with a "minor" change, render their thin clients unbootable. This causes an additional support load. An easy-to-use configuration gui will greatly simplify things for first-time administrators.

Use cases

  • Rebecca has a successfully working Edubuntu lab. She's added another 3 workstations, and one of them, an old pentium II, has a cranky old S3 video card. She's asked some questions in #edubuntu as to why this one machine doesn't have any display, and Ollie tells her she should try the vesa driver. After school, she turns off all the other terminals, and fires up ltsp-manager on her terminal, and asks it to auto-scan for all mac addresses. It finds the one turned on machine, and allows her, with a few clicks, to add the custom X driver. She reboots. Success!!
  • Jim wants to turn off NBD swapping, because he's just upgraded all his terminals to have 512 megs of memory, because he wants less network traffic. He opens up ltsp manager, and turns off the swapping with one click in the Defaults section.

Scope

Managing thin client setups

Design

  • In order to comply with the LTSP 5 specification, a GUI manager should be a part of the LTSP environment.
    • Management of the /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf file should be present.
      • add client specific settings
      • move a client from the dynamically assigned, to the statically assigned group
      • Scanning for MAC addresses on the network via dhcpd log scraping, and arp -a
    • Management of the lts.conf file
      • Add or remove settings from the [Defaults] section
      • Add or remove settings from individual machines (based on MAC)
    • Management of the LTSP service
      • Start/Stop thin client services
      • go/no go indication of LTSP's health
      • Drill down into health of individual components of LTSP health (dhcpd running, tftpd running, etc)
    • Management of chroot
      • Update chroot to latest versions of software.
      • install "local apps"

Implementation

Some code has already been written, and an example package is in universe. Finish off the above points, include a .desktop file so that it can be included in the System -> Administration menu, and promote to main.

Code

  • Most of the health detecting tools are in the upstream ltspcfg utility.

Data preservation and migration

None

Outstanding Issues

  • For version 2.0, we'll want to include remote shutdown, and wake-on-lan capabilities.

CategorySpec

LTSPManager (last edited 2008-08-06 16:18:23 by localhost)