[Server-devel] Collaboration server for existing network

[Martin Langhoff]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan
<sridhar at laptop.org.au> wrote:
> Thank you very much for that explanation. It certainly helps to keep
> everything in perspective.

My pleasure.

> What I think we really need is a turn-key ejabberd solution that
> integrates with existing network services. If you or anyone else can
> assist we'd be immensely grateful. I'll explain...

At this time, I don't have it. And ejabberd is only one of many
aspects of what the XS provides to the XO. Access to Moodle and
backups are top of the list. OS and activity updates are also
important.

> There appears to be some a difference in the design assumptions for
> the XS versus what we see in Australian schools. The XS works great
> where no other network exists, or where it is acceptable to establish
> a separate subnet and wireless infrastructure.

That was the design brief when I joined OLPC, and continues to be.
Locations with existing networks have existing software expertise (you
;-) ) that can self-help on this track.

You are not the first to ask for this, and I recognize it's an
interesting use case.

(And you cannot imagine how snowed under I am with other stuff. I'd
love to help, and I _can_ help with if someone else -- you? -- takes
ownership of it.)

> Shorter-term, we have identified that the key feature we need is the
> collaboration. Schools would be very happy if they just had that. It
> seems like a way forwards is to have a more 'standard' Linux server
> (running something like CentOS or Fedora). It would run ejabberd to
> manage the collaboration.

Your conclusion is skipping some key facts -- the nice collaboration
experience you expect _depends on the integration with registration
and, in schools with more than ~50 users, on the Moodle integration_.

Maybe my earlier email wasn't clear enough... the kiwi thing of
understatement sticks to me. In brief: I don't make those
recommendations lightly.

You will need all the services I outlined for a satisfactory outcome.
Maybe backup isn't strictly needed, but once you've done the other
services, you get backup "for free".

> There should only be a need for one network
> interface, eth0, which would get its DHCP, DNS and other network
> services from the LAN. The XOs can connect to existing wireless
> points.

Yep -- that's agreed, and easy.

> A key design goal is that this needs to be easy to set up and
> maintain, so that a volunteer can do it in the field. So far I've
> found ejabberd to be extraordinary fiddly to set up, which has given
> me an appreciation for the good work done on making the XS easy to
> deploy.

Yep. Look - you can even turn my "draft how to" into a shell script to
run on the XS after a "standard" installation. On the existing
DNS/DHCP server you need to setup some names, and a static IP addr.

That's easy for a volunteer to do. Right now it's "run domain_config".
It could be "run domain_config, then run configure_to_guest_server".

I will be more than happy to review the shell script, advise, and keep
an eye out for corner cases, gotchas and problems. It's on you to
write it and test it.

> I'm sure that a solution to this problem would be of great use in many
> locations worldwide. I don't believe that our use case is particularly
> unique.

Agreed. In other words -- solve it, and you'll be a hero for the other
deployments that need it! :-)

cheers,


m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
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