EdubuntuMassDeploymentManagement

Ubuntu Education Summit 2007 : BOF Discussion Topic

[ purpose of this page ]

This page provides an overview of the discussion topic for the Ubuntu Education Summit in Seville, Spain.

Edubuntu Mass Deployment & Management - Reducing Administration Overhead

[ submitted by ]

  • Cam Cope

[ description ]

There is increasing interest in deploying Edubuntu on a large scale, and we are getting questions on how to best set up the deployment and configuration to reduce installation effort, as well as ongoing administration overhead. We will discuss existing configuration options, documentation of these options (existing and required) as well as what other steps we can take to satisfy the requirement. This is a significant requirement as we wish to target school districts as well as individual schools. Centralised management is a key issue in this space.

Issues:

  • How to deploy/install to large numbers of workstations
    • LTSP thin client
    • LTSP fat client
    • Standalone workstations
  • Tips and suggestions to assist with:
    • Deployment
    • Ongoing Management
  • Tools to assist with:
    • Deployment
    • Ongoing Management
  • Documentation & Guides

    • What is available for Edubuntu
    • What is available for general Debian / Linux
    • What is needed for Edubuntu
    • Online documentation
    • PDF for promotional use
  • Promotion
    • How do we promote the above as a "cost of ownership" feature ?

[ comments ]

  • Please add comments here that you feel may be useful.
  • Please remember to add your name to your comments.


  • Network administrators should be given several methods of software deployment and management:
    • Thin client desktops using LTSP and OpenLDAP
    • Thick client desktops using LTSP and OpenLDAP
    • "Fat" client desktops (all software is installed and executed locally, but /home is a network share) using OpenLDAP and new software "Foo1" and "Foo2": (breakdown of packages will probably change)
      • Foo1 consists of a server and a client package (or may even be a new version of OpenLDAP)
        • Foo1 handles which resources are available to each client based on physical location, computer group, and/or user
        • Which printers are accessible from Location A
          • Use CUPS IPP printer broadcasting, and perhaps group assignments within cups for finer grained control (i.e. students can't print to teachers lounge printer). -- ScottBalneaves

        • Which network shares are accessible from Location B (Art room, Meeting Room 1, Study Hall, etc) or by whom (Financial Review Group, Administration, etc)
        • Which programs are accessible to whom (integrate with OpenLDAP and/or Dynamic Menus, or maybe create separate package to do so?)
        • Seems to me that this is simply a matter of coming up with a groups schema within LDAP, and tying in a couple of front ends to query the appropriate table within LDAP. NGROUPS_MAX is 65k within 2.6 kernel, so you should be able to create groups for users, shares, printers, etc. Then, simply assign group membership for users. -- ScottBalneaves

      • Foo2 handles assigning hostnames and IP addresses, and keeps the /etc directory in sync with the configuration settings of group "bar" (**check feasibility)
        • Wow, all over the place: -- ScottBalneaves

          • Hostname to IP matching is either a DHCP, or DNS issue.
          • /etc syncing should either be handled by apt packaging, or rsync
      • Foo2 provides the Network Administrator the means to issue mass remote commands, including:
        • Update (all|group|individual) computers to match LocalRepositoryA's packages (add, remove, update if necessary)
        • Sync /etc of (all|group|individual) computers to match SharedConfigurationDirectory1

        • Timed Logout/Shutdown/Reboot of (all|group|individual) computers
        • Log out specific users
    • Standalone Desktop (choice of basic configuration or network-accessible preselected configuration)
    • Server (basic, LAMP, OpenLDAP, or custom configuration already accessible via network) (**Check feasibility)

[ --Cam Cope ]


UES-Sevilla/BOF/EdubuntuMassDeploymentManagement (last edited 2008-08-06 16:19:30 by localhost)