Feels so good to be back...bunch of Epoptes questions

[David Trask]

Today has been spent getting myself back in sync with Edubuntu.  Many of
you may remember me...I go way back to the first K12LTSP and subsequently
Edubuntu.  I also was one of the authors of the famous smbldap-installer
which allowed you to quickly set up a Samba/OpenLDAP server (took about 2
mins).  I've been out of "this" loop for while since I was using Resara's
Linux thin-client solution.  It was awesome and they did some things
really well.  Resara is now moving into the directory server arena (it's
open source)...with RDS (Resara Directory Server) and thus the thin-client
support is winding down....sending me looking for "next years" solution. 
Anyway....I'm back and it's been like seeing an old friend again.  (RDS is
pretty cool...Samba 4/OpenLDAP/Active Directory...nice GUI...etc. check it
out and download it at Resara.com) *disclaimer...I'm simply a user...I
have no affiliation with Resara.

moving on....

I'm really enthusiastic about Epoptes.  Aside from being the Technology
Director....I'm also a classroom teacher (computer lab).  I teach K-8 and
that gives me a rather uniques set of needs for my thin-clients.  I've
figured out how to meet most of them, but here are a few things I need
help with or feature requests.

1. It seems every now and then Epoptes won't see anything...I find if I
log out on the master Epoptes machine and log back in....then it will see
things again.  Is this normal?  And if so, is there an easier way to kill
everything without logging out?  I tried "killall epoptes", but there was
nothing to do.

2. Is there a way to group the clients by "classroom" similar to iTalc? 
This would make it easier in a lab setting when you want to execute
commands, reboot, shutdown....etc.

3. In Epoptes, I can get the machines to restart, log out, shutdown, lock
screens...but I cannot do any screen sharing/demo'ing....what am I missing?

4. One thing the Resara guys made it easy to do was set "autologin".  I
would go to their thin-client manager...check the autologin box and voila!
the machine would autologin at next restart.  I have found a way to do it
manually by having two copies of lts.conf and swapping them out by copying
over lts.conf....however, it would be awesome if there was a GUI way to do
this.  In my case, I simply want all my lab machines to login
automatically for the first period when the Kindergarten kids are in here,
and then I want to revert to normal at the end of the period.  I restart
all the machines anyway as a means to let the kids know it's time to
go....not to mention those little kids will NOT leave the computer until
the VERY LAST second.  ;-)

5. Another thing Resara allowed me to do was to assign printers to certain
groups of thin-clients.  For example, all the thin-clients in the K-2 wing
would be allowed to print to the K-2 printer and my lab printer....whereas
the 3-5 wing could print to the 3-5 wing printer and my lab....etc.  It
also let me assign the default printer for that group.  This is especially
helpful when trying to keep printing and paper consumption under control. 
Normally kids print to whatever the default is....and if that printer is
too far away, they then decide to print another copy to a closer printer. 
I would like the "closer printer" to be the default for that group of
machines.

(unfortunately the Resara thin-client tools were a "value-add" and closed
source so I can't show you exactly how it was done, but also the system
was mostly done in KDE and thus the tools were KDE based...etc.)



David Trask
Technology Director/Teacher
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask at vcsvikings.org
(207) 923-4305

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