[K12OSN] directory services in a linux centric cross platform workstation environment

[Hoover Chan]

re: huge .profile directories slowing things to a crawl

I experienced that but ran out of time to figure it out to a satisfactory conclusion. A pointer to how to solve it?

re: planning to use ltsp as the core of the new directory service

No, I'm not planning to do that but thought that the collected audience here would be knowledgeable and sympathetic toward a FOSS solution to this rather than resorting to buying a Windows Active Directory or Apple Macintosh Open Directory server.

Most of the workstations and laptops here on the academic side of the house are Macintoshes. Easily about 85% of our campus are Macs. The remaining are Windows for the administration (we use something called Blackbaud for administrative computing which is Windows specific). I have one Linux workstation...

Thanks.

-------------------------------------------------- 
Hoover Chan                     chan at sacredsf.org 
Technology Director 
Schools of the Sacred Heart 
2222 Broadway St. 
San Francisco, CA 94115


----- "Bob Mead" <bmead at lane.k12.or.us> wrote:

> We use openLDAP as our main authentication tool. Our school is mostly
> 
> win-doze desktops with some macs, yet our server infrastructure is 
> mainly linux. We have only two win servers (required for a few
> specific 
> apps). All of our clients (some 1300+ computers district-wide) 
> authenticate through the LDAP server. I wasn't here for the build out,
> 
> but I can say that it works. For our win clients we have samba to
> serve 
> win-style shares and we use roaming profiles to allow transparency on
> 
> the network. The problem we have is that our users tend to generate
> huge 
> .profile directories and this slows down the login process to a crawl
> 
> [or worse]. Once we fix that - it works seamlessly. As a side note,
> even 
> our ltsp terminals and servers use the ldap server to authenticate.
> 
> Upon re-reading your post below, are you trying to build an ltsp
> server 
> that is also your main openLDAP authentication server (in lieu of an
> AD 
> or other auth. server)? If this is so, then I would guess that your 
> installation is going to be somewhat complex.
> 
> HTH
>     ~bob
> 
> Hoover Chan wrote:
> > The subject line is quite a mouthful but that's pretty much the
> question I'm mulling over right now.
> >
> > I've been bombarded by proponents of Active Directory for Windows
> and Open Directory for the Macintosh with all the different neat
> network applications that become easy to implement and manage if only
> I switch the servers to the appropriate platform. Does anyone here
> have a mostly Macintosh and Windows workstation environment that
> integrates well with an OpenLDAP type Linux centric server? If so, how
> hard is it to build?
> >
> > A lot of my colleagues at different schools locally seem to come
> from using AD as their core directory service and then "bend"
> everything to adapt to that. I'd hate to be forced into building a
> Windows server just for AD...
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------- 
> > Hoover Chan                     chan at sacredsf.org 
> > Technology Director 
> > Schools of the Sacred Heart 
> > 2222 Broadway St. 
> > San Francisco, CA 94115
> >
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> >