[K12OSN] need some K12LTSP 5.0EL advice

[James P. Kinney III]

On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 00:30 -0400, Jim Anderson wrote:
> Are the current K12LTSP 5.0EL isos final (not beta)?
> 
> If so I would like to move from K12LTSP 5.0.0 to 5.0EL.  I have one
> server with about 90 active user accounts.  I would like to set up my
> disks to a RAID 1 configuration and do a fresh install.  I have a USB
> hard drive that I can copy the home directories to. 
> 
> What I need to know is how to copy the user account information to the
> USB drive so that when I rebuild the server I can transfer the
> accounts information back and not have to set up new accounts.

<line wrap warning>
as root:

cd /
tar cvzf
userbackups.tar.gz /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /etc/groups /etc/gshadow /home

now copy userbackups.tar.gz to usb drive.

wipe and install new EL version. Make /home a separate partition for
easier migration from now on.

Make the usb drive accessible again and untar the file to setup accounts
again. 

NOTE*** There are some system accounts (UID below 500) that may be
different between the two installs. Make a backup as above but with a
different file name. Or cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.ORIG,
cp /etc/shadow... so it there is a problem, you have the originals.
Remember: If you edit the passwd file and add a missing user account you
MUST also edit the shadow file and likewise for the group and gshadow
files. vipw and vigr are useful.
> 
> In setting up RAID 1 do I need to create a swap partition?  I had
> problems with this in the original install of 5.0.0.  The server is a
> 2.8 GHz Pentium D with 2 GB RAM.  I have 20 terminals and run GNOME.
> Can I live without the swap space?  I also plan install to install
> squid, dansguardian and pykota.

You will ALWAYS need a swap partition for the OS. The standard 2GB swap
partition is OK. If you are using software RAID1, create the a pair of
1GB swap partitions and let swap handle them outside of RAID. Putting
swap on a mirror is a waste of system resources. If you are using
hardware RAID you will have no choice but to put swap on the mirror or
add a third drive.

I have had very good performance with 3 drives as follows:
drive 1 used for OS: has swap
and /, /boot, /bin, /sbin, /etc, /usr, /tmp, /var (this was NOT a
database or web server!) on the drive with /var in it's own partition.
Drive 2&3 on hardware raid sub partitioned
for /usr/bin, /usr/local, /home, /opt

Once system is up and running drive one gets used for swap and tmp and
occasionally for a /var entry. The heavy read sections
of /usr/bin, /opt, /usr/local is split between two spindles and user
data in /home is mirrored for data security.
> 
> Is there a list of the major software included with 5.0EL?
> 
> Thank you,
> Jim Anderson
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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