[K12OSN] Re: SMBLDAP question (David Trask)

[David Trask]

Whoops!  I misunderstood....I should have read more closely...I was
assuming you were using EdUbuntu in an LTSP environment....

Check Matt's comments in the previous post....he's right on.  And he's a
little biased...he knows the author of the smbldap script very
well....they're practically the same person.  *grin*  :-)


"Support list for open source software in schools." <k12osn at redhat.com>
writes:
>> Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:03:53 -0400
>> From: "David Trask" <dtrask at vcsvikings.org>
>> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] SMBLDAP question
>> >I have a really dumb question; I am hoping maybe David Trask or some
>> >other kind soul can help me:
>> >I have a lab set up with Edubuntu workstations and a Ubuntu server.  We
>> >use SMBLDAP to authenticate student logins on the server. 
>> >The guy who helped me set it up sent me some directions; the first
>thing
>> >it tells me to do is mv /home/administrator /administrator and then
>> >usermod -d /administrator.  We make "admin" a local login and
>> >administrator a server login. 
>> 
>> Wow, this is the hard way....just log in as root or at least "sudo" (
>you
>> may need to tweak the sudoers file) and then just 'git 'er done....your
>> scenario you describe above is just too cumbersome
>
>Not to be contrarian or anything, but what you were advised to do
>sounds exactly right, assuming that you're mounting /home from an NFS
>server over /home on each workstation. In fact, failing to move
>/administrator out of /home before mounting the NFS export will at
>least cause you Very Bad Problems when you try to log in using Gnome.
>
>> >When I do this, I can no longer run anything, particularly the users &
>> >groups GUI or the Synaptic Package Manager.  
>> >My question is, is there a way to make these things run without the
>> >existence of the /home/administrator directory? 
>
>That seems odd; the home directory shouldn't have anything to do with
>this. (So the answer to your question is "yes, by doing just what
>you've described.")
>
>Keep in mind that if you're running Samba/LDAP you probably don't want
>to use the Users & Groups GUI anyway, because it can't help you with
>your LDAP users.
>
>Is it still possible for you to run the 'sudo su -' command and become
>root?
>
>> Yeah....as root.  Just be careful.
>
>Hmm. Not to be contrarian, but you can only run the GUI apps as root
>if you do one of the following:
>1) enable a graphical root login, which is definitely more trouble than
>it's worth
>2) enable TCP connections to an Xserver, enable a remote host to
>   connect to your X session (xhost), and set DISPLAY=<your X host>
>   when you run the GUI apps from the command line as root
>3) enable root logins via ssh and ssh -X into your box and then run
>   the GUI apps from the command line
>
>Of those options, the best by far is #3, which requires only that you
>set a root password ('sudo passwd'), ssh -X root at localhost, and then
>run 'synaptic' or whatever else.
>
>But it would be preferable for you just to 'sudo synaptic' instead, in
>which case you should just be able to run it from the menu like
>usual...and since you can't do that, I wonder how far you'll be able
>to get with any of the rest of this.
>
>> >Any other ideas for ways to make these Edubuntu workstation logins
>> >authenticate on teh server?  Any ideas for speeding up the computers
>that
>> >authenticate really slowly?  I need to set up 2 workstations that puked
>> >on me; I also have a couple of workstations that take 3+ minutes to
>log a
>> >student in.  The other workstations log people in in under 30 sec's. 
>
>LDAP is the best of the available alternatives, and with the caveat
>that I know the author personally and am therefore biased, I must say
>that the Samba/LDAP installer makes it pretty easy to set up LDAP,
>even if you don't care about Samba.
>
>Your authentication times do not sound at all happy; especially if
>this is a small number of workstations in a single room with the
>server right there, we should be talking about something <10 seconds
>for the actual authentication part.
>
>Just to double-check, it sounds like you're talking about regular fat
>clients and an Ubuntu Samba/LDAP and file server, right?
>
>--matt
>
>--
>Open Source Software Engineering Consultant
>http://majen.net/
>
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David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100