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

Mike Biancaniello mikebianc at aol.com
Mon Dec 12 21:58:35 UTC 2011


4) I have seen suggestions to the effect of setting up first one 'template' acct and then a guest acct for each client (like guest-<mac_addr_of_client>) and then setting the lts.conf file to auto login each client to its repective guest.  Then, there can be a 'clean up' script on logout that basically wipes the guest acct and replaces it with a new copy from the template acct.  I'd have to dig up the urls, but the author included a script to auto-generate the guest accounts based on the current sessions (assuming you had them all booted at some point) just to simplify the initial startup.

From: David Trask <dtrask at vcsvikings.org>
To: edubuntu-users <edubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Subject: Feels so good to be back...bunch of Epoptes questions


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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