[Server-devel] Nepal XS customizations

[Daniel Drake]

Here are the customizations we're making on top of XS-0.6 here in
Nepal. This version will start being distributed to the field on
Monday.

Kickstart file modifications:
 - no GUI, just use text mode
 - auto reboot at the end of installation
 - no interactivity during installation
 - timezone and root password hardcoded
 - packages added: dansguardian, dependencies for nepal's E-library
system (www.pustakalaya.org) e.g. mysql, some php modules,
ImageMagick, java
 - added a nepal-specific "nexs-custom" customization package, and a
script from that package to run on firstboot (details below)
 - nepal-specific XS build number written to /etc/motd and /etc/issue

Build scripts including the customization file can be found at
http://hg.olenepal.org/NEXS-image-builder/

The customizations from nexs-custom:
 - udev rules to make sure that onboard LAN is eth1, and USB ethernet
adapter (for WAN) is eth0
 - apache configs to set up aliases for our various content components
and E-library
 - mysql config file to enable storage in /library and
1-file-per-table innodb setting
 - a script to simplify eth0 configuration
 - a self test system (details below)
 - various usbmount scripts to enable automatic content installation from USB

The firstboot script from nexs-custom:
 - configure and enable dansguardian
 - setup "admin" user account, with a predetermined SSH public key and password
 - configure and enable mysql
 - enable moodle admin account and set a predetermined password
 - beep and print some instructions to the screen

Notes on self test:
 - 32 tests performed, to check that: hostname has been set, both
ethernet interfaces present, all the regular XS services running,
Nepal content has been installed
 - it runs on every boot, logging the test results and info into
/var/log (max 500 logs kept)
 - it can also be run from a usbmount script which is triggered by a
file named "nexs-run-self-test" on the USB disk. In this mode it will
use aural beep codes to indicate test success and failure, in addition
to logging the test results and info back to the USB disk.

nexs-custom code is found at http://hg.olenepal.org/NEXS_scripts/

The content that we add:
 - Fedora Commons (www.fedora.info) and Fez frontend, and huge content
collection -- a clone of pustakalaya.org
 - a clone of http://en.wiktionary.org  - an English definition dictionary
 - a clone of www.nepalisabdakos.com - a Nepali definition dictionary
 - wikipedia for schools (http://schools-wikipedia.org/)
 - latest full version of OLE Nepal's huge educational content
activity, including the whole years worth of lessons (this is also
present on the XOs but only for a certain time period at a time -- the
overall activity is split into 6 different XO activities which are
distributed at different times through the year, the full version is
too big to store on XO)
 - some world maps, an atlas, and educational videos

some scripts we use for supporting the above content installation can
be found at http://hg.olenepal.org/NEXC-maint/

Daniel