Infrastructure requirements for
Linux on the Desktop !

Kris Buytaert

Senior Consultant , X-Tend

kris.buytaert@x-tend.be

X-Tend

Part of the Cronos-group

Partnerships

:	Business Partner

:	Solution Provider

:	Solutions Partner & Training Partner

X-Tend Expertise

10 years experience in Open Source

Certified Engineers

Novell

RedHat

MySQL

Active contributors to Open Source

openMosix

Evolution

Linux kernel

Strong Background

Pharma

Telco

Industry

Retail

...

Agenda

Authentication

File Storage

Printing

Mail

Backups

Monitoring

Installation

Configuration Management

“Trivial” Services

DHCPd

isc.org

(Dynamic) DNS

bind (isc.org)

djbdns

www.isc.org , the defacto standard

Authentication

Required :

Central Authentication

Central User Management

Tools

LDAP

NIS(+)

NT4 Domain

Active Directory

NLD

PAM is your friend!

Filesystem

Where do we store our data / homedirs

CIFS

CON :
no symlinks and sockets
“Microsoft Based”

PRO :
Standard is advancing
Performance is increasing

Filesystem

Where do we store our data / homedirs

NFS

PRO :
Common Unix
Posix Compliance

CON :
No ACL's
Network failure system

Filesystem

Distributed, Disconnected FileSystems

Coda

Lustre

Automouting with e.g. pam_mount

Printing

Directly connected to the machine

CUPS

Direct Printing

Printserver

Queue management

Mixed environment, same printing

Standard supported IPP, PostScript etc ...

Mail

RFC Standards are sufficient

SMTP

POP3S

IMAP/S

Tons of Open Source alternatives available Postfix+Cyrus+Squirrel

Calendring

Backups

Backup your

End User Data

Configuration Data

Commercial Products

Rsync

DCProtect

Monitoring

What to monitor

Disk status

Network health

CPU/Memory usage

Analyze threads

Backup state

SD state

Leftover Windows Applications

Seamless integration with the other applications

Citrix

Tarantella (now Sun)

Antivirus

Are there viri for Linux
>> How many virus mails do want to delete ?

What about Trojans

Teach your users

Antispam

Same problem
>> How many virus mails do want to delete ?

Tackle @ Serverside

SpamAssassin

AND @ Client Side

High Availability

K.I.S.S

Increase Redundancy on Hardware Level First

Remove SPOFs.

Choose Mature Hardware/ Software

Test Everything

Twice

How are your backups ?

High Availability

Linux-HA Project

Heartbeat +Mon

LVS

Application Specific Clustering

Large Scale Installs

The Problem

Manually install machines

Different installs

Do you really need games

Do you know which packages are installed

Can you reproduce an installation

Large Scale Installs

Goal

Machines have to be kept in sync

Upgradeable

Controlled number of installed packages

Reproducable

Rollbacks

Speed

Large Scale Installs

Goal

Machines have to be kept in sync

Upgradeable

Controlled number of installed packages

Reproducable

Rollbacks

Speed

Large Scale Installs

Imaging

Speed

Identical machines

Multicasting

Installing

Finegrained

“Slower”

Hybrid

Image a basic image

Install the delta's

Large Scale Installs

Machine Description

Partitions

Packages

Group Description

Package/Image Repository

Default configurations

Large Scale Installs

Initial Image

PXE Boot

DHCP

tftpboot

Transfer:

http

rsync

multicast

Configure

Go live !

Large Scale Installs

Tools

Zen

Satellite

current.tigris.net

SystemImager Suite

Oscar

Build your own !

Configuration Management

Change Management

Modify configs on remote machines

Automated

Reproducable

Version Control

Configuration Management

Tools

cvs

cfengine

isconf

C3

dssh

Good morning everyone, my name is Acke Jean-Marc and I want to welcome everyone to this event “Linux on the Desktop”.

In short I will give you a quick overview of the agenda.

Linux has been around for while, especially when you look at the server side.

In this segment you have mature solutions such as mail, web, file & print, etc.

On the desktop, on the other hand, Linux had no clear focus.

But this not true anymore, since companies like Novell have a clear focus on offering desktop solutions (distributions).

Especially Novell has a commitment to the Linux desktop, by offering the NLD distro

You will see in the presentation of Jo De Baer of Novell what NLD is all about.

An other interesting evolution is the increasing avalability of applications, commercial as well as Open Source :.

I look at products like :

- OpenOffice, the Open Source office suite

- Collaborations tools : Evolution in combination f.i with Groupwise from Novell

- there are even emulators which can run Windows applications (if this is necessary)

(Crossover, Wine, ...)

A very important issue in big organisations, is installing and managing a big number of desktops. Novell and RedHat have commercial tools for software distribution and patchmanagement: ZenWorks & Satellite. These products can manage a large number of desktops. Even if you look at Open Source atternatives you have nice solutions for managing software & patches (cfengine)

There also products around for installing images, doing unattended installs :

autoYast, systemImager, ....

All of these things : Maturity, applications and management will be covered in the next

presentations.

This is the agenda for today :

At 9h10, Jo De Baer from Novell will be explaining everything about the Novell Linux Desktop or NLD. He will also cover briefly the ZenWork for Linux Management, a tool for software distribution and pacth management

At 10h00, Georg Westbeld from SCAI, our German partner, will explain how organisations, even very big organisations, can make the step to OpenOffice.

SCAI has developed an unique tool SCAI MAS, which helps companies to migrate to OO.

At 1045, we have a coffee break

At 11h00, Kris Buytaert, a senoir consultant of X-Tend will cover the inftastructure requirementys for the Linux desktop

At 11h30 : we will present a business case, which is jointly presented by Karel Van Diest, IT manager from SPE/Citypower. He will cover the business aspects of going to a linux desktop.

Frédéric Descamps, sr. consultant of X-tend, will present the technical part.

At 12h00 Lunch

X-Tend is part of the Cronos group, as seperate company and is an independent service provider, focussed on delivering Open Source solutions.

We have about 10 people in the X-Tend company, who have a firm knowledgebase.

Minimal experience within the group is 7 years.

X-Tend works closely together with partners as Novell, Redhat and MySQL.

This results in certifications of our consultants :

Redhat certified, MySQL Pro certified, etc ....

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

People within X-Tend are also active contributor to the Open Source community,

They actually develop, test or release software for Open Source projects like there are :

openMosix

Evolution

Linux Kernel ....

X-Tend was also main sponor of the FOSDEM event :

Free and Open Software Developers European Meeting where OS developers meet.

Know people as Alan Cox, Richard Stallman, etc ... are presenters on the FOSDEM event

2005-06-15T14:51:22