Edubuntu additions for small schools

[antonello facchetti]

ndy Figueroa ha scritto:
> I, too, am a one-man IT department for a small school.
>
>   
me too; bad job, ain't it?
> With the included Linux/Unix tools, additional tools don't seem to be 
> called
> for.  Here is the script that I use to populate a fresh install of 
> Edubuntu
> with users.  This only shows two users, but my real script is 153 of 
> users
> long.  it's just a bash/shell script that you run from the command 
> line (as
> root, or with sudo, of course):
>
> #!/bin/sh
> useradd -m -G scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse -s 
> /bin/bash cfreeman
> useradd -m -G scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse -s /bin/bash
> jbfreeman
> echo "Run 'chpasswd < pw2' to establish initial password for new user."
>
> The second file (pw2) is just a text file listing users and their 
> passwords
> like this:
>
> jbfreeman:notrealpw1
> cfreeman:notrealpw2
>
> All this doesn't do is use a machine generated password.  The problem 
> I have
> with machine generated passwords is that the students cannot remember 
> them.
>  So, I use a password scheme they can remember, but not guess.
>
>   
I use quite a similar way, but using webmin: I have a lab to manage in 
my local school (k12) with about 100 users, and the whole institute 
website, for which I must create all students' and teachers' accounts 
(1000 ca.).
I get a file from the school office  database via sql  and  I work on it 
with openoffice calc  to get a csv file that I load to the website's cms 
and to my lab pcs via webmin. (If you are interested I can post an example)
I find webmin quite useful for this purpose, i.e. manage users via 
uploading a file.
As for the passwords, the same problem: what sort of scheme have you 
developed?

Antonello Facchetti
Italy
Ubuntu 8.04 lab