[Server-devel] physical security issue

[John Watlington]

Actually, Walter, we still hold hope for XOs as school servers
for very small schools.    The problem with this is insufficient
memory and insufficient disk space.   While an external disk
may alleviate the second problem, it has poor reliability and
is a very attractive item for theft.

But there is nothing stopping a regular laptop from serving
as a school server.   An external network interface may be
needed for the upstream connection.

wad

On Oct 7, 2008, at 11:25 PM, Walter Bender wrote:

> Clarification: the XO is not the laptop I am proposing for the server.
> Wad can speak to this.
>
> -walter
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Walter Bender  
> <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>> One idealet (not worthy of being called an idea): What if the server
>> were a laptop that the teacher could take with him/her? Pros: The
>> school need not be secure. Cons: Price, and of course, laptops can be
>> stolen. But it does put the server in the hands of a presumably
>> trusted individual in the community.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu>  
>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org>  
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You keep pushing for centrally hosted school servers.
>>>> Are you sure you don't work for the phone company ?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Last time I checked, San Francisco State University wasn't in the
>>> telco business.
>>>
>>>> Again, unless you have a 100 Mbit connection from the
>>>> school to the upstream ISP, you will need something with
>>>> a disk and a significant amount of memory present in the
>>>> school.
>>>>
>>>
>>> OK.
>>>
>>>> I don't disagree about the need for physical security of
>>>> the machine, just the proposed solution.
>>>>
>>>
>>> OK. Any other solutions? I'm all ears.
>>>
>>> Sameer
>>>
>>>> wad
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 7, 2008, at 10:47 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As if discussions on this list aren't lively enough, here's  
>>>>> another
>>>>> issue to look at.
>>>>>
>>>>> While I was in Jamaica, I met with several people who work with  
>>>>> their
>>>>> school districts, and many pointed out that if a server was to  
>>>>> stay
>>>>> physically resident at the school, it will need a lot of physical
>>>>> security. The most common problem is theft. The other problem  
>>>>> will be
>>>>> physical damage (just because somebody can). It is not uncommon in
>>>>> some of these
>>>>>
>>>>> If the school server is hosted at an ISP upstream, we need  
>>>>> something
>>>>> small (maybe an XO?) at the school that can VLAN or VPN over to  
>>>>> the
>>>>> school server at the ISP/Data Center.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>>
>>>>> cheers,
>>>>> Sameer
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>>>>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>>>>> San Francisco State University
>>>>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>>>>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org