[Server-devel] Collaboration server for existing network

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On 15 March 2010 16:38, Jerry Vonau <jvonau at shaw.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-03-15 at 14:49 +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
>> 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. 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.
>>
>
> That is not too hard to do, disable all the *bond*, msh*, wmesh*, eth1
> interface files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ and edit
> /etc/dhclient-exit-hooks, disabling the resolve.conf re-write.
> then setup eth0. Having the local changes respected upon updating, is
> something that would need to be tested.
>
> The biggest issue, I think would be to have the dns/dhcp setup right for
> the schoolserver, once that is in place, things should go ok.

Nice one. I'll give that a go.

>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I'd love to hear the list's opinion on this. Even better, we'd love to
>> hear from anyone who can help us out.
>>
> Think we can do up a howto, I just need to do a fresh install on a test
> box, and see what I have to edit on a bone stock install.

If you could do that, you would be our hero. I'm working on it on our
end, but I'm new to the XS and a lot of the OLPC stuff, so it's a bit
tough.

Cheers,
Sridhar


Sridhar Dhanapalan
Technical Co-ordinator
OLPC Australia
p: +61 425 239 701
w: http://laptop.org.au