[K12OSN] smbldap rocks! Successful server migration and fix

[Paul Lemke]

I'll have to second that on smbldap. :) A school of about 80 kids... so a
very small budget. We could afford no more than 1 server and the networking
equipment to wire the building. We slashed our estimated budget in half when
I decided to switch from a windows server to a linux based one. All I can
say is... linux > windows. Ldap and samba are awesome. Not to mention the
installer... I putzed for 5 hours trying to set my own up (before I gave up.
:) ). I ran the installer and in 5 minutes I was done. 

Sure there have been some stumbling blocks. But overall things have run very
very smooth. Thanks for all the help!

Paul 



-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf
Of David Trask
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 7:28 AM
To: K12OSN at redhat.com
Subject: [K12OSN] smbldap rocks! Successful server migration and fix

Hi all!

I have to say that things have gone quite well with this years deployment
of K12LTSP v5.  Not that it hasn't in the past, but it seems to get easier
each year.  As many of you know I run a Samba/LDAP server for
authentication and then I run a couple of K12LTSP servers using dhcp
load-balancing/failover.  One of my K12LTSP servers has been less than
perfect this year....and....I was able to get a new server (originally
intended to replace an aging Windows Terminal Server)....so I figured I'd
turn the new server into the 2nd K12LTSP server.  The installation (I do
it via NFS from a server where I store all the ISO files) went very
quickly and smoothly.  Once school was out yesterday I simply took the
server I wanted to replace offline (after tarballing or scp "ing" many of
the config files) and then proceeded to configure, update, and install
additional programs on the new server.  It took me a couple hours (update
took the longest) but once I was done...it was slick.  The coolest part is
that since I use Samba/LDAP....there were no worries about users and
data....it was simply an application server.  I just set it for network
login when the "firstboot" thing came up.  Very cool....a mid-week....late
afternoon, evening....production server swap.....I wouldn't even dare do
that with a Windows machine.

The seocnd cool thing with smbldap is that I was very fortunate to be able
to help out a colleague whose samba/ldap server had stopped for some
reason.  (the service was dying almost instantly)   Through the magic of
Linux and the fact that I'm now in most cases more comfortable on the
command line than I am in the GUI (seems to be a certain point in a
person's Linux/UNIX growth that this happens)....I was able to ssh in to
their server (another school about 20-30 miles away)....see what was
happening....realize the best way to fix it was to run the
smbldap-installer again and then restore from an ldif backup....an voila! 
All set!  What a cool feeling!

Given the problems that are cropping up on the list lately I wanted to
interject that there are success stories as well. (I certainly
understand...as this list is the place to go to find help...and you only
need help when things aren't working right)   Feel free to share yours!  

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Director
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207)923-3100


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