[nzlug] General server/client enquiry

[Daniel Pittman]

Roland Hill <rolandh at ak.planet.gen.nz> writes:

> I recently got tired of having addresses spread across PC's and
> different applications, so I installed openldap and use that as my
> central address store.
>
> My network is purely at home; 1 x server and 1 x client, each running
> Linux.
>
> I just wondered what people do when they deploy a number of Linux
> clients with respect to user accounts and /home storage (assuming no
> virtual users etc).

Oh, this answer is going to please you:

> i.e how do you deploy each client to have multiple user accounts
> without setting them up individually each time? Do people use NIS for
> this or even ldap?

Yes.

> I assume central storage of /home/$USER can be achieved with NFS.

Yes, sometimes.

> I'm in the mood for learning and playing on my home network. Any
> pointers would be appreciated.

The range of options we consider for deployment, or I have used
previously, include:

NSS data in: 
 * passwd (per machine)
 * passwd managed by cfengine or puppet
 * NIS
 * LDAP
 * LDAP via Active Directory

Password data / auth via:
 * passwd (per machine)
 * passwd managed by cfengine or puppet 
 * NIS
 * LDAP
 * Radius
 * Kerberos (direct, or via AD)
 * third party commercial solution (RSA tokens, etc)

* File storage (typically in some combination of...):
 * per-machine
 * central NFSv3 storage
 * central NFSv4 storage
 * NFS / CIFS via NetApp or equivalent NAS
 * AFS
 * Windows server via CIFS


In other words: the area is complex, the cost/benefit of each choice can
be hard to understand or quantify, and almost every site is different.

If you are looking to learn things that are generally useful I advise
roughly this order of things:

 * learn LDAP for NSS and auth
 * learn Kerberos for auth (with LDAP NSS)
 * learn about puppet and cfengine
 * learn NFSv3
 * learn AFS

Regards,
        Daniel
-- 
Daniel Pittman <daniel at cybersource.com.au>           Phone: 03 9428 6922
1/130-132 Stawell St, Richmond              Web: http://www.cyber.com.au
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company