[Glastonbury] debian@stdunstans (was Just a little idea)

[Martin Wheeler]

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, steve wrote:

>  As we are maintained by a third 
> party I do not have root access on the servers but have to request any 
> install or support needed.

Aieee!  Bummer.
[OK -- I *know* you're paid to be a teacher, //not// a sysadmin.  But the 
day is going to come when one day in the classroom you are going to *need* 
root access to your network.  This is a delicate one that only you can 
sort out.  Perhaps the best compromise is to allow your remote managers to 
share *your* root access password.  And make sure they understand it's 
that way round, too.  Otherwise, you're on the slippery slope to 
proprietorial lock-in.]

> If I had root access I could have installed it 
> myself just as easily with urpmi of from the install tarball.

  .. which is now how many months out-of-date?

I suggest a system where you have the latest upgrades available locally at 
100 Mbps over the internal network; say from a couple of 200 Gb disks in a 
cupboard somewhere, with your system servers.  (Why have the latest? 
Think security.)  Andy, Hereward and I all ended up doing this.

> Currently the Network is remotely managed by fensystems.co.uk.
> We pay about £1500 p.a. for this.

Any hope of getting the school to pay this to //you// for doing the same 
thing?  :)

> They use Mandrake 10.0 official edition along with their own scripting using 
> Perl to maintain the Network.

  -- see comments above about lock-in --

Are you given access to the source of these scripts?
If not, why not?
(20th C. attitudes no longer obtain.  Sorry; but it's progress.)


> If the group can help me migrate and gain more autonomy on maintaining the 
> Network then I am willing to switch to Debian.
> I just need to feel that I know what I am doing. With a bit of "hand holding" 
> I am confident it can be done.

Sure thing.  No problem.
(Although I would suggest taking 16 of the 150 new machines, and setting 
up an experimental network to begin with, to iron out any acclimatisation 
problems.)


> A major switch like this would have to take place over the summer holiday 
> 2005 as we have had enough disruption to the network as it is.
> I will download Debian again and install it on a spare partition in the 
> meantime and compare it to Mandrake.

As I've said somewhere else, I've got 2 DVDs of the latest release you can 
borrow/copy.

Cheers,
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
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