[Server-devel] Schoolserver development in Uruguay

Rodolfo D. Arce S. rodolfo.arce.s at gmail.com
Thu Aug 19 21:57:10 EDT 2010


Comments regarding the initial paraguayian deployment, i'm not very
familiar with the current status

Regarding distros, when the initial setup was made, the XS (fedora
based) schoolserver was the only straightforward instalation that
could have anything working with not so much tampering, and was pretty
automatic, so XS was chosen, I'm a regular sysadmin, and i got the
thing working given enough research time, and martin's help.. is not
always like that.. we must take into account that there are not many
people that could get an XS working on any given distro, and although
there are many volunteers (like bernie) who go around the world doing
this things, sustainability is very far away.

If there is a distro, or many distros, is not the real problem, the
real problem is that there needs to be a simple straightforward and
automatic way to deploy a schoolserver without needing a masters in
computer science, or even a deegree at all. It has to be fast and it
has to be simple.

In Plan Ceibal worked fine using debian, because they have specialized
people that can do the develpment and can do the maintenance, not
because the chose this or that distro

In Paraguay, Fedora was chosen for the same reasons, it was the
fastest way to get things done, and the simple way to sustain it in
the long term, with XS and Fedora patches, which I don't know if were
made later on.


> == Jabber ==

I don't really understand much how collaboration works, so, no comments


> == Backups ==
>
This numbers make sense to paraguay deployment but may not make sense
to other deployments, so I'll explain the folders that I remember

>  262M   backup
Backup folder, where all data that was going to be rsynced to the
datacentes was stored, it would amount to a backup of the plone, the
databases, some configs, and other stuff

>  3.4M   games
This was a folder where a web based game was going to be stored, this
would be published by the apache web server

>  1.7M   orug
Same as before, it was a game developed by a paraguayian legal team to
help kids learn about thir rights

>  62M    pgsql-xs
I don't remembre

>  67M    uploads
The PAFM web folder discussed leter

>  238G   users
The datastores folder

>  20K    webcontenido
The apache default webpage, with specialized links for games,
activities and others

>  17M    xs-activation
>  516M   xs-activity-server
>  827M   xs-rsync
I don't remember

>  2.7G   zope-var
Since plone works with a "selfcontained" filesystem for its webpage,
this _single_ file was going to be backed up to the datacenter as
well, i think this is the folder, but i remember that it had to go to
the backup folder anyways


> The feasibility of remote backups varies depending on how much we care
> to backup. In Paraguay, it was decided that the journal backups are to
> be considered a valuable if we are to instill the idea in teachers that
> the laptop is the same of a notebook with homework on it.
>
> Journal backups, however, amount to a whopping 238GB of rapidly
> changing, mostly uncompressible and undeltable data. Quite not the ideal
> case for an incremental backup. With today's available resources, we
> could afford to backup everything *but* the journals.

This problem is more related to the way the journal stores the files
and the metadata, I remember little about it, but the main problem
with backing up a laptop is no just about taking files, any single
file in the datastore doesn't get you a back up, you have to take the
whole datastore folder.

Incremental, or differential backups could be made if the datastore
treated the files differently, I'm sorry if I hurt some
suceptibilities, but is the truth, there's no simple way to back up
_just the data_ from the journal, you back it all or nothing, because
_part of it_ is useless.

I don't know if that improved in the newer version, but 0.82 (i think)
is the one that was used in Paraguay, is like that

> Yesterday Daniel Castelo and I discussed the idea of performing
> cross-backups between nearby schools. This solution would probably work
> well in terms of bandwidth distribution, but it would bring some
> logistic complexity. Probably an acceptable trade-off.

This an interesting idea, and is related to the sustainability part of
the deployment, and XS

Deploying a schoolserver should be made easy, this would help small
deployments and big deployments, the faster the server gets to the
school the better, we all know that, but the real advantage is when
maintenance can be made from remote or with simple and fast solutions,
like puppet, CFEngine, or even self conained rpm/deb packages, becuase
this is the way that we get the masters in computer scince in every
schoolserver we want.

The faster that a schoolserver can be install, and for the matter
reinstalled and restore the better, because then you would only need
to send a guy (not a sysadmin) to go, insert a CD, next, next, next,
voila.. even when changes need to be done.. they should be done in the
way that can be applyed to the Installation CD (or installation
procedure) rather then installing,  and later updating with remote
control

Remote control is the best solution for problems to be solved in real
time, or for deploying new content when an XS is already installed and
working, but there could be other ways

Paraguay in that sense did something really cool.. install the
schoolserver _in house_, update it and send it to the field, but in
the fild had to go somebody that could make the adjustments for the
network to work, and that simple task was very difficult sometimes,
and updating the leases and content when no conection is available is
not fun either.

> == Content management ==
>
> Paraguay seems quite happy with Plone, but frankly I can't understand
The plone deployment was based on a decision to give the schools a
simple CMS, not simple in deployment, but simple in using, using a
plone CMS to create content is super friendly,  but in time, none of
the teachers or students got to used it (simple or not)

> why. Teachers heavily use a really simple php tool called PAFM, which
> provides basic hierarchical file management with no access control or
> versioning.
They used this tool instead because they learned how to use it during
teachyer training, and they like it, it had an issue that once with
access you could delete your co-workers files, but they used it
anyways

> Oddly, I've not yet may anyone using Moodle. When I ask why, I always
> hear some vague comment about it being designed for higher education.
> Same goes for Schooltool. These more structured tools probably present
> an steeper learning curve and a bad fit for unsophisticated requirements
> of users who are being exposed to information systems for the first
> time.
I guess this is related to the teacher training nd plone as well, they
just didn't get to use it, i don't want to talk about complexity, but
i think is more related to usage rather

>
> After they have functioning backups, Uruguay would like to provide a
> wiki. They have already looked at Dokuwiki, with which I'm not familiar.
> It seems to have a readable and easy to learn Creole-like syntax. I
> would personally recommend going either for the simplest possible wiki
> in this category, or straight to Mediawiki--the most feature-complete
> out there.

When a CMS was proposed, and later plone was accepted, i recomended
dokuwiki, but for personal reasons i have to say, i have experience
with dokuwiki, and deployment, updating, backup and other stuff is
super fast (because it doesn't use a database, uses text files and
folder schemes), but a being a wiki, is not as friendly to the newbie,
because of the special syntax and all

> == Server management tools ==
>
> Paraguay uses Puppet. We're very happy with it.
> Uruguay uses CFengine. They seem to be very happy with it as well.
>
> Both employ a flat hierarchy with one puppet master controlling all the
> schools, which is simple and straightforward, but requires excellent
> connectivity.

I would advocate for this tools anytime, anywere.. but the conectivity
is an issue, specially for places were the laptop is intended to go.

The idea of the schoolserver should be of a _standalone_ and
autonomous with simple yet friendly solutions to help improve class

Internet is a luxury that Uruguay has because of a deployment politics
that thay have (or so i read somewhere).

Paraguay has internet, not because of a goverment desicion but rather
because of the good resource movilzation, finding the sponsors that
will give the internet, becuase of the projects public exposure

If i think about what deplying in rwanda, uganda or even tibet, where
the laptop is intended to go. There is no internet there, so their
experience should point us to some key features that need to be
included in the schoolserver

I'm sorry this got so long, but there was plenty to be said.. :-)
--
Rodolfo D. Arce S.



-- 
Rodolfo D. Arce S.
www.rodolfoarce.com


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