On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 03:32:30PM -0700, Andrew Lentvorski wrote: >George Georgalis wrote: > >>make instructions for users to >> install the putty suite >> generate rsa-keys >> use pagent >> mail rsa keys to admin > >That's a set of steps where this breaks down. That means I have to >teach putty and ssh *on top of* SVN. That takes time I don't really >have. That's time other instructors are not going to willingly give up.
noooo. they don't need to use putty. the suite is a single binary. you can write instructions in 5 click steps for XP heads. hardest part is explaining you have to move the mouse within the rectangle to generate entropy when you generate the keys -- when they use pagent they just need to select their private key and enter a pass phrase (before repo access). TortoiseSVN will use the other binaries with zero user interaction. I did forget to mention, the putty key-gen exports keys in a funny way but you can use sed to make them one line, I have a 2 line program for the task. >Now, I *can* create a directive by fiat, "Learn this on your own, or you >fail." However, that's not what good teachers do. fiat, try what I suggested, I've done it for groups who may never use a shell. proven easy. >In addition, I want this solution to be accessible to other instructors >with minimal admin. By making source control the easiest method to use >for submitting code, the other professors will "just use it". In >addition, if enough professors adopt this as the default, the students >get to use *1* source control and submission system for 4 years. >Eventually, the students will be better at this than the instructors. I'm not sure what admin you are thinking of. I'd recommend backing up the repo sometime, but I've never needed any more svn admin than the one-time create/chown/chmod commands I mentioned. >>>2) The instructor needs to be able to check out and modify the files of >>>any student >> >>N=/repo/student-n >>svnadmin create $N >>chown -R student-n:instructors $N >>chmod -R ug+rwX,o-rwx $N > >Been there. Tried that. Doesn't work. me too, accept it worked for me. >It is the same failure mode as CVS. > >The problem is that a new file or directory winds up owned by >instructor-0 when the instructor does stuff. Those cannot be deleted or >written by student-0. > >There are also some umask issues. Especially if instructors isn't the >default group for student-n. > >To get around this, I had to resort to the Solaris ACL system. It >works, but I had to use lots of hoops and always had to check to make >sure ownership was set correctly. > >Eventually, it was a lot easier for me to just add a public key of my >own to all of the student's authorized_keys file. Then, I could check >in code directly as them rather than fighting the permissions. how long ago did you use svn? was it before sleepycat? that sounds like a cvs issue to me. >Having done this for one class, I now know all of the pitfalls. ;) I really don't understand how you could have the problem you describe. Good luck, // George -- George Georgalis, systems architect, administrator <IXOYE>< -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
