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Stephen Walton TSAG December 9, 2004. A Linux Distribution for CSUN?. Problems to Solve. Duplicated efforts Downloads Installation Better integration with campus LDAP authentication/authorization PORTAL, WebCT interoperability Central backups? Fewer faculty moonlighting as sysadmins
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Stephen Walton TSAG December 9, 2004 A Linux Distribution for CSUN?
Problems to Solve • Duplicated efforts • Downloads • Installation • Better integration with campus • LDAP authentication/authorization • PORTAL, WebCT interoperability • Central backups? • Fewer faculty moonlighting as sysadmins • We do it, but it isn't really our area of expertise
Approaches • Complete “CSUN Distro” • Which one? • Larger effort • Provide “kickstart” file or equivalent for auto-install and setup • Post-install script
CSUN Distro • Which one to base it on? • Most physical scientists in my experience using RedHat or a variant • “Scientific Linux” (Fermilab) is a repackaging of RHEL • Boston University's campus distro is Fedora-based • Stability (RHEL) vs. up-to-date apps (Fedora) • Large-ish effort
CSUN Kickstart • Kickstart is a mechanism for automating installation of RedHat • Can customize packages, disk layout, and so on • Somewhat inflexible: perhaps only feasible for a completely hands-off install on standard hardware
Post-install script • Flexible, easy to implement • Harder to deal with quirks of individual installations • “lynx -dump http://www.csun.edu/fedora/prepare.sh | sh”
Who's Gonna Do It? • I will collect names and organize a startup meeting in January • Meanwhile, think about the answers to these questions