[K12OSN] one more time

[Petre Scheie]

Sharon Betts wrote:
> I have IGEL clients (linux flash bootable) and legacy windows 2000
> machines.  They presently all boot and then authenticate through my
> Windows server, access my WIndows terminal server for Star Office and many
> other apps. and use the file server for their folders.
> 
>  I want to implement a Linux terminal server to serve GIMP, some TUX
> stuff, Scribus, Kino, etc.   The users need to be able to access the apps
> on the windows terminal server as well  and print to network printers and
> save/load from their folders (on the Windows file server).  These are
> elementary students and teachers -- things must be pretty seamless for
> success.  This is my pilot school -- I have 4 others presently running
> purely WIndows networks (except for one standalone LTSP project with thin
> clients).
> 
> Best scenario --At each school, my windows authentication and file servers
> remain, and I add both WIndows and a LInux terminal servers and get away
> from all those locally installed apps.  Obviously adding Windows terminal
> servers is no problem, its the linux....
> Sharon
> 
It sounds like you have several projects rolled into one here. ;-)
1. Get LTSP server to use Windows server for authentication.
2. Get LTSP server to mount users' homedirs that live on Windows server.
3. Get LTSP server to print to same printers as Windows server.
4. Get rdesktop working on LTSP server so users can access apps on Win 
server.
5. Allow Windows clients to run apps from LTSP server (?).

I wasn't sure if #5 was something you had in mind or not.  As to the 
first four items, they're listed in order of decreasing difficulty, but 
probably in the order you need to get things working in order to pull 
this transition off.  And I may be incorrect about #1; are you running 
Active Directory on the Windows server?  Or are the Windows clients just 
using local authentication (info which is then passed to the Windows 
server when a user connects to his/her home directory on the Windows 
server)?  The users care about #2, getting to their files.  You care 
about #1 because it may affect how you handle #2.  Others may have 
tackled automatically mounting Windows shares on the LTSP server 
(anyone?), but I haven't.

With #3, are the printers all connected directly to the network (they 
each have their own ethernet jack) or are they connected to a computer 
which is then connected to the network?  In either case, defining the 
printers on the LTSP server is fairly easy and can be done via cups or 
webmin.  I would avoid using the print queues on the Windows server as 
it's unnecessary and just makes the LTSP server dependent on the Windows 
server.

#4 is just a matter of installing rdesktop on the LTSP server.  Seems to 
me someone on the list once described setting up icons for users that 
called rdesktop and specific apps on the Windows server.

So, if you can clarify #1--that is, do you want the Windows server, 
where you presumably have all the user IDs and PWs stored, to handle the 
user authentication for the LTSP server so that you only have to 
maintain one user store, and is the Windows server running AD--then we 
can try to figure out what you need to do there, which should then 
dovetail into #2.  HTH.

Petre