[Server-devel] usbmount alternatives

[Holt]

George/Daniel/Tony/Jerry,

Was there a conclusion here, if any?

On 11/13/2012 10:45 AM, Tony Anderson wrote:
> On 11/12/2012 07:47 PM, Anna wrote:
>> Just throwing this out, but incron might be something to look into.  For
>> example, I've set up root's incrontab so that if a specific file is
>> modified, a script automatically runs with root permissions.
>>
>> You could set root's incrontab up to watch /run/media/olpc/ and when a
>> directory is created there (i.e. any USB drive is automounted), incron
>> would call your script and run it as root.
>>
>> Again, just brainstorming here.  I won't be offended if someone says
>> that's a terrible idea.
>>
>> Anna Schoolfield
>> Birmingham
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 6:09 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org
>> <mailto:holt at laptop.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Thanks Tony..adding a couple others involved too :)
>>
>>     On 11/12/2012 6:59 PM, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>
>>         Hi,
>>
>>         First, usbmount is the software that mounts a removable drive.
>>         So I would think Fedora is replacing it with an alternative
>>         (some software has to perform that function). CentOS is still
>>         using usbmount.
>>
>>         Usbmount provided for a script to be installed by the
>>         administrator that would be run whenever a removable drive was
>>         mounted. Daniel Drake uses this to execute a series of XS
>>         specific scripts (these scripts were developed for OLE Nepal and
>>         are not in XS-0.7). The scripts he developed for OLE Nepal look
>>         at the mounted drive and checks for the presence of specific
>>         folders. If these folders are present then a corresponding
>>         script is executed.
>>
>>         So there are two approaches going forward:
>>
>>         1. Implement the capability on the usbmount replacement.
>>
>>         2. Execute a script via ssh from an XO, a url, or even direct
>>         access for a school server on the teacher's XO.
>>
>>         I am planning to use a 'generic script' on the server:
>>
>>         if [ -f "$UM_MOUNTPOINT"/XC/xc-install ]; then
>>              log notice "Installing XC"
>>              cd $UM_MOUNTPOINT/XC
>>              if bash xc-install; then
>>                  log notice "XC installed successfully"
>>              else
>>                  log notice "XC install failed with code $?"
>>                  error_beep
>>              fi
>>         fi
>>
>>         Essentially it tests whether the drive has a folder XC with a
>>         file xc-install., if so it is executed. If not, nothing happens.
>>
>>         The xc-install script is on the mounted drive and does whatever
>>         is needed.
>>
>>         XC is the counterpart to XO and XS and refers to the content for
>>         the school server (XS being the software). This isn't hard and
>>         fast. The XC script can (and does) add packages (e.g. mediawiki
>>         or django) not in XS-0.7. Of course, it can also change the
>>         server configuration.
>>
>>         The script needs to be run with root privileges. In Sridhar's
>>         scenario this could be a bit tricky. I set up the school server
>>         for login by admin by password and su to root (requiring another
>>         password). This works well when you have itinerant technical
>>         support who may need to administer school servers at many
>>         different sites. If a teacher is to accomplish this, it would
>>         probably be easiest to arrange for the teacher to login via a
>>         public/private key pair and be given root privileges.
>>
>>         It would be relatively easy to give the teacher's laptop a
>>         special menu line in the XO icon or in the console so that no
>>         command line interface would be needed. Essentially I am doing
>>         this sort of change with a script which works after the XO
>>         install (it could, of course, also be baked into the build). In
>>         the latter case, all of the laptops would have the extra menu
>>         line so the school server could be configured only to accept the
>>         teacher's click (e.g. identify teacher by serial-number so that
>>         only the teacher's public key would match).
>>
>>         Tony
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --
>>     Help kids everywhere map their world, at http://olpcMAP.net !