[plug] Job opportunities? (OT) + linux school servers...

[Beau Kuiper]

On Tue, 03 Oct 2000, Bernard Blackham wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Leon Brooks wrote:
> > Andrew Furey wrote:
> > > So what do you guys think? Is there Linux (/related -
> > > Perl etc) work out there in this city of ours?
> > 
> > Yes. Plenty. The problem is being seen by the kinds of people who (1) want to
> > use Linux and (2) you will want as customers.
> 
> I once proposed the idea of moving our school servers which are currently
> a mix of G3 Macs and NT boxes over to Linux servers which would handle
> both Macs and PC's and allow students to share files in between. One of
> the reasons the idea was turned down was due to the lack of technicians
> that could support it, in the case that the only linux proficient people
> at the school left (very inevitable case).  
> 
> If I could show that there is a fair base of technicians in Perth that can
> support our Linux server, then my case to the school shall get a rebirth
> :)
> 
> Wouldn't a Linux support company in Perth be a profitable business to
> start? Or has this already been done?
> 
> <going more ot now...>
> 
> Also, could anybody perhaps suggest anything to the following plan below,
> to make things even more convenient/integrated/better? Or has anybody had
> any experience with setting up student servers or similar in the education
> environment? If so, I would be very keen to get in touch with you.
> 
> Our school was originally planning to implement a student server to serve
> the Macintosh and Windows machines at our school with personalised student
> files, roaming profiles, etc. The plan was to use Novell's NDS system on
> NT4 which was chosen because of it's flexibility to provide to both
> Macintosh and Windows clients, to allow restrictions to logins by time and
> location (IP address), amongst probably a multitude of other things, for
> the few thousand dollars NDS costs.
> 
> My alternative solution was to use Linux, for web server, mail servers and
> proxy servers, all eventually, but to firstly get a student file server
> set up. We have Macintosh labs (OS 8.5/8.6) and PC labs (W98) that
> students currently use. From the Macintoshes, a student would simply load
> their volume from the Linux student server in Chooser, running
> atalkd/afpd. On the W98 machines, they would actually log in,
> authenticating with the samba server and pulling off their roaming
> profiles, and load their logon scripts to mount their home directory.
> 
> What would also be nice is to have student's indiviudal Netscape
> preferences to access mail on an IMAP box, leaving none of their own mail
> on the machine itself.

I would strongly suggest against giving any sort of IMAP access unless there is
a secure server out there for it. The main server is so buggy you may as
well give shell access. Where I work we use a webmail package that lets students
check their email from anywhere.

My details may be slightly wrong,
Beau Kuiper
kuiperba at cs.curtin.edu.au

This is not an electronic signature :-)