[Server-devel] [XSCE] Re: XS(CE) integration with other environments?

[Tim Moody]

XSCE tries to play in three distinct roles:

1) Gateway - the traditional XS configuration with an upstream connection, usually dhcp, and a downstream connection with dhcpd and dns on a fixed address with the name schoolserver.
2) Appliance – only an upstream connection, usually using dhcp, but in the future with a fixed ip address.
3) Lan Controller – only a downstream connection, provides the same services and ip address as a Gateway but with no routing.

XSCE uses a combination of flags indicating the installer’s intent and discovery of the adapters and gateway present to select one of the three roles above.

The other convenience for more complex topologies is that subdomain names are possible, so that each downstream can still look like ‘schoolserver’ to its clients, but look distinct to those upstream.


>
>From: Samuel Greenfeld 
>Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2015 3:02 PM
>To: Adam Holt 
>Cc: server-devel ; xsce-devel 
>Subject: [XSCE] Re: XS(CE) integration with other environments?
>
>You are taking my remarks a bit out of context, although it is hard for me to tiptoe around explaining things while trying not to insult anyone.
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>From the schoolserver perspective, schoolservers as originally implemented were meant to be an all-in-one system.  They provide DHCP for the laptops, act as the Internet gateway, provide anti-theft & backup services, etc.
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>Sugar & XOs have hardcoded logic expecting the schoolserver to be called "schoolserver".  Schoolservers are also expected to have certain hardcoded IP addresses in case an XO runs into anti-theft problems, etc.
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>But in larger networks/school districts, I have seen schoolservers installed into networks where they are not allowed to control DHCP.  They often were not the Internet gateway, and local policies might not allow them to be called "schoolserver".  Occasionally the schoolserver isn't even in the same building as the XOs, and may be on a completely different subnet.
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>This is a whole concept I once called "Sugar for the Enterprise {school district}" but I don't know if that is worth pursuing at this time.
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>XSCE is interesting in that it supports things like Internet-in-a-box which are not XO specific.  And from what I've seen, the XSCE community may in some ways be more active than the Sugar community.
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>But it is unclear to me what features the XSCE community is implementing to support deployments other than those they are directly involved with, or what the feedback loop is there.
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>On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
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>Can someone further explain Sam Greenfeld's suggestion below from http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2015-March/017279.html ?  No obligation, but if there are common requests missing from XSCE & similar, let's understand them:
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>The XO/Sugar/Schoolserver combination was originally promoted as a complete solution which could be used independently without anything else.
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>But in practice, there is a need to integrate with other solutions.  Sugar may be a great educational environment but there is a need to tie it into existing schools and curriculums.  OLPC had educators on staff looking into this problem, but I don't think we have that luxury.
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>As an example, the same kludge hacks kept being made over and over to integrate Sugar & XOs into environments where the schoolserver might not control the network, proxy authentication/802.1x networks were used, etc.  For some reason this functionality never made it upstream.
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