[Gllug] Some network queries

[Jim Bailey]

On Friday, October 12, 2001, at 05:45 PM, Dylan wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm just about to re-install the machines on my network for what I hope 
> will
> be the last time (at least, the last time en-masse!!) I have a server, one
> 'primary' (i.e. higest spec) workstation, and three secondary 
> workstations.
> There are six users (plus root for each machine, of course) and two user
> groups which I will be syncronising across the machines (leaving root 
> local
> on each, of course.) I'm using SuSE 7.1 (7.2 after re-install, I expect.)
>
> Questions:
>
> A) Should a non-root local user be maintained on each machine? I can't see
> any use for such a user since system admin etc would have to be done as 
> root
> and one of the six users mentioned is a 'guest' account to allow
> non-registered users minor access (web browsing, document printing, etc.)

Yes always have a non root user for remote connections via SSH you should 
not connect remotely to a machine as root.  I don't the all technical 
reasons but people who know tell me it is bad.  Also unless there is a 
very good reason for the users to have a shell account on the server 
change their shell to /bin/true which will allow them ftp only accounts.
>
> C) I intend to install the server with no X-Windows (to save space, and 
> deter
> user logins.)

You should not have X running on a server for security reasons it is a 
very complex package and therefore potentially more difficult to secure 
though you can use SSH to set up a secure X session.

>  I assume, however, that X packages can be installed on it to
> run over the network (I'm thinking primarily of StarOffice, here.)
>
I think so

> E) Staroffice currently takes an age to load and initialize over the 
> network.
> Does anyone know if it could be installed an run locally, bearing in mind
> that it does a 'secondary' install into the user's home directory if not 
> run
> across the network?
>
Star office takes ages to load no matter what you do IMHO, it depends on 
disk space on local machines on wether or not you can do a local install.  
If it is a network problem you may want to think about changing up from 
10base network to a 10/100 fast ethernet

> F) (Last one, for now) I would like to have the system shut itself down 
> when
> not in use. It's a home network, so for example if no-one was logged in 
> for 1
> hour after , say, 11pm the network may assume it's not wanted until the 
> next
> day. How would I go about having the server identify such a situation, 
> shut
> down any running (but unused) workstations, and then shut itself down?
>
> Hope that all makes sense, I will be most grateful for any and all advice 
> /
Cron should be able to do this for you and a whole load of other stuff you 
may find useful.  If you can not do it from cron directly try a bash 
script or even perl if you feel brave
>
I hope that some of this info may be useful to you but beware I am not as 
smart as I look and some of this may be very wrong.

Peace Jim

"Why use a JPEG for the listings instead of text?
Because I want precise control over the layout. And because it seriously 
annoys "real ale" Internet users who do all their browsing on text-based 
hand-held calculators, and that arouses me."
--http://www.tvgohome.com/



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