On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 08:36, Bill Bogstad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There are a number of XO deployments possible in the Boston metro > area sometime next spring. My understanding is that OLPC does NOT > want to run these deployments, but is interested in having them happen > so there are deployments local to the Cambridge office for test > purposes. As a result, the local XO users group (OLPC_Boston) has > been asked to help out. As my background is in system administration, > I offered to look into possible XS server deployments at the same > time. Even though I've been on server-devel since June; I'm still not > sure to what extent an XS would be useful in these circumstances. > > As I see it, at this point an XS provides: > > 1. XO backup service (ds-backup) > 2. Activation service? (probably not needed since XOs will be G1G1) > 3. Support for > 20 networked XOs (ejabberd?) > 4. Moodle server (not clear what this means in terms of funcionallity) > > Is that correct? Is much going to change by January? For a > deployment of say 20-30 XOs in one location, does it even make sense > to have an XS? > > Another issue is that reusing available resources (pre-existing > wired/wireless hardware, dhcp/dns/web proxy/filtering services) would > be very helpful. Even if pre-existing services are inferior to what > an XS might provide, for political reasons in a small deployment, it > is probably better fit into a framework with which local IT > personnel are comfortable. Unfortunately, my impression is that the > current XS images are somewhat brittle in terms of assuming they > control all of the networking services and as well as requiring > specific IP numbering of various interfaces, control of DNS/DHCP/NAT > routing/etc. > > I understand the need to provide turn-key software for locations > where there isn't anyone who understands networking. However, I find > myself in the situation where even though I know about netmasks, DNS A > records, etc.; I have no idea how much of the higher level > infrastructure on the XS requires leaving things as they are. For > example, can I have an XS with a single Ethernet interface? I think I > saw something in a config file somewhere that suggested this (doing > DHCP on the Internet facing interface), but I can't find any mention > of this anywhere on the wiki. What if I want DHCP/DNS to be handled > by something other then the XS, but do what the other services? Given > the rapid pace of development, it's hard to tell from the wiki pages > what works/used to work/was never implemented/is an idea for the > future/etc. > > I apologize if the above is confused/confusing. Unfortunately, that's > the way I feel at this point. I've got this big ball of string I'm > trying to untangle and I have no idea where to start. Any suggestions > how to get a handle on this would be greatly appreciated.
For such a small setup you might not need everything the XS provides, but you would still benefit from running ejabberd somewhere. You can build it from source with the required OLPC patches: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Installing_ejabberd I'm going to have a go at producing updated Ubuntu packages for this ejabberd setup soon. Regards Morgan _______________________________________________ Server-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel