Synchronizing xs-0.3 and xo-??? --- backups

[Martin Langhoff]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 5:14 AM, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Michael Stone <michael at laptop.org> wrote:
>  > On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:33:13AM -0400, Eben Eliason wrote:
>  >  > Well, I guess I need to know a bit more about the technical details
>  >  > that will be in play in this circumstance.  Since we don't have unique
>  >  > usernames or passwords, the only identifier for the individual and her
>  >  > data is her key, right?  How does one obtain her key if, for instance,
>  >  >  her previous machine was bricked or stolen?  And even if she has it,
>  >  > must we really require her to type it in?  I suspect we may,
>  >  > unfortunately.
>  >
>  >  Laptops are uniquely identified by their serial-number/uuid pairs. The
>  >  ssh keys are incidental. Ivan's proposal (correctly, in my opinion)
>  >  calls for backups to be associated with laptops on the XS with an
>  >
>  >               SN <-> child
>
>  OK.
>
>
>  >  relation. I regard the problem of associating a new laptop with an
>  >  existing child as a problem that can be most conveniently solved with a
>  >  configuration tool or UI on the XS.

Yes - this is the track I am working on.

>  So, backing up one step...this means that in any case where the
>  restore needs to be performed on the same laptop, we can do the
>  retrieval automatically by silently passing the SN from the XO to XS.
>  Correct?  It's only in the new-machine case that we need any user
>  intervention, apart from initiation and perhaps confirmation.

Well, we need to define a workflow that contemplates trust and real
life problems. My fuzzy idea was to

 - Get the teacher to indicate via a web-based UI on the XS (to be
done later) that new laptop UUID/SN should be associated to this
(already existing) user+laptop account.
 - When the laptop registers, accept the locally generated SSH key and
somehow alias both accts together or provide access to the old acct

>  As a final option, we could of course check on the XS for a backup
>  associated with the machine's SN, and secondarily offer a UI for
>  entering the SN association if one doesn't exist.  This has the
>  benefit of handling both of the above cases silently as described...as

I was thinking along the same lines (check for a "related" backup
regularly), but based on an association made on the XS by the teacher.

Tricky aspects remain of defining "teacher" and providing a suitable
UI on the XS side, but I will cross that bridge when I get there :-)

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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