[debian-lan-devel] Architecture questions

[Andreas B. Mundt]

Hi Julien,

On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 06:31:31PM +0200, Julien Lambot wrote:
>
> I was wondering if there is a solution foreseen for laptops?
> Indeed, the fact that logon occurs against mainserver's kerberos seems to
> block the possibility to logon without LAN connection (therefore the
> "Debian-Lan" project).
> Are there plans to support this?

There has been shown interest before, see
      <URL:http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-lan-devel/2013q1/000211.html>

What I did so far, was checking how this is done in debian-edu, I
found this:

     http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/eduroaming/debian/control?view=markup

And the libpam-ccreds package: Pam module to cache authentication credentials.
IIRC it seemed to work with libpam-ccreds more or less , but I did not
continue that work, as it's not only the authentication but some kind of
synchronization which makes things more complicated (Or just the local
home directories and the server's home mounted by default somewhere if
available).
There is also the libpam-mklocaluser package which might be
interesting.  I do not know if anybody uses the concept in debian-edu
successfully, this should be figured out first.

Laptops/roaming machines are definitely of interest, but it seems to
be a challenging project, that's why I did not really start on it
yet.

> What could I try to do things in respect with project's architecture?

Well, having laptops/roaming machines supported would be of course
great.  Then samba and windows support is probably something people
are interested in.

I think about including some way to create a live distribution which
can be deployed from the debian-lan, a "lernstick":
     http://www.imedias.ch/lernstick/lernstick_en

Which can be used in the debian-lan but also at home (interesting for
schools).  This might be comparable to the roaming machines, but it
could also include some kind of local cloud, where the students can
sync and exchange files when in the debian-lan.

So everything is welcome, also just running the system and reporting
success, problems and suggesting improvements is great!

Best regards,

     Andi