MiscNotes < CF

CF Web>XHier>MiscNotes (2006-06-21, WalterTautz) (raw view)

At some point in the recent past the following was done to xhier some linux boxes
for the graphics lab.

   * Preserved the disk partitions but remade the
     file systems on them as otherwise the install would have proceeded to copy
     them into the pre-existing filesystem which would result in old files being
     left in what should be a new install.

   * As noted, I took the output of dpkg --get-selections from Mike Patterson
     (availabe in this Wiki somewhere)
     and ran sent them into the input of dpkg --set-selections on glspare0
   * ran lsof -i to see what services were running. Got rid of some services
     like talk
   * Created the Xhier directory structure that has to exist prior to actually
     putting Xhier on the machine
      * Usually the main Xhier tree is placed under /fsys? mount point. So in
        this case I did:
        <verbatim>
        mkdir /.software/regional /vendor /xhbin
        mkdir -p /fsys/.software/{arch,share,spool,local,admin}
        ln -s /fsys/.software/* /.software
        </verbatim>
   * ==NOTE.== /.software/regional is an NFS mount point to a Network Appliance Fileserver and
     consequently doesn't get put under /fsys, mostly for estetic reasons.
   * Edited cscf.cs:/.software/admin/xhier/data/access-rights (using RCS)
      and put in the line: =glspare0.student.cs debian31.cscf=
      to allow for distribution of xhier from debian31.cscf
      to =glspare0.student.cs=. 
   * Ran =xh-distribute -h debian31.cscf xhier= on =cscf.cs=
   * To allow xhiering of glspare0.student.cs I did
      * create .shosts file with some appropriate entries and then hardlinked .rhosts to it
      * apt-get install rsh-server rsh-client
      * edited =/etc/hosts.allow= to allow hosts we want to have access  and put in ALL:ALL in /etc/hosts.deny
      * checked that rsh glspare0 ls -al worked on debian31.cscf
      * ran xh-first-time -v -h glspare0.student.cs on debian31.cscf as root
      * xh-dist2 glspare0.student.cs debian-1 (this should really be made to happen automatically
        when running xh-first-time, or at least that would be a nice feature)
      
---+++ Passwd and Group Files Management
   * It doesn't work as it should. At least not using =setpw= xhier package. Ultimately
     the active directory server should be used (via LDAP?) to manage accounts. Now
     to document the problems with =setpw=:
      * The passwd file management works. Specifically the file      =glspare0.student.cs:/software/setpw/data/config/exempt-users=
        contains a list of userids, one per line. containing the Debian vendor userid 
        prior to setpw    management of the file. There was a problem of truncation to 
        the first 8 characters. Ray Butterworth corrected this problem.
      * The group file management breaks badly. Specifically if one adds
         some entries (for example Debian-exim4) to
         =glspare0.student.cs:/software/setpw/data/config/exempt-groups=
         the entry is totally blown away. Other problems include changing
         the GID and the users contained in those groups are also not
         preserved.

Topic revision: r3 - 2006-06-21 - WalterTautz

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