Re: ldapifying services

[Ronny Aasen <ronny@skolelinux.no>]

José L. Redrejo Rodríguez wrote:
> Hi, Some of you are already aware of the intention of migrating config
> of some of the main services in the main server to LDAP. A wiki page [1]
> illustrate the progress.
> Currently, in Extremadura we have set up a etch ldap server, and have a
> lenny server with dhcp and dns working against the ldap server (nowadays
> slapd is mostly broken in lenny[2], that's why we still keep the ldap
> server in etch). The system is working perfectly, without any known
> problem. 
>
> For this process to continue, some steps have to be done, and that's the
> main reason for this email:
> - modify debian-edu-config to work with lenny slapd, after current sid
> packages with the fixed bugs enter in testing
> - decide if the relation between dns & dhcp will continue as today, or
>   
> changing it makes sense (I'm refering to the groups in the bind config
> that determine ips and names of some machines in the network)
>   
I am thinking, that it's not much point (other then backwards 
compatibility) in order to keep the current system of pre generated names.
Instead i think that when you add a machine in lwat, dhcp+ dns forward 
and reverse is generated on the fly.  This would remove non exsisting 
names, and allow easier local naming schemes.
There should be a way to keep a bit of order in the numbering scheme, 
while still keeping it flexible enough. Perhaps a locally configureable 
template can instruct the admintool to suggest names, eg ltspserver00 if 
the machine is in the thin-client-server groups. Or room123machineXYZ if 
the machine is in the Room123 groups.  But this would be more a 
admintool feature then a ldap/dhcp/dns feature.

Or we could pregenerate dns, like we do today, if one did non specify 
debian-edu-expert in order to preserve backwards compatibility. But 
personaly i think we should try to be a bit more flexible in the dns 
dhcp world. And maintaining both forward and backward compatibility is 
hard.
> - decide a definitive nomenclature for the ldap branches (maybe "cn=DHCP
> Config,.." is not a perfect name.
>   
Are there standards for this we could look at ? Or is it just up to 
ourselfs to find something saneish ?
> - make the installer being able to change the ldap base dn
>   
agreed
> - work on lwat to be able to work with dhcp & dns configs when
> adding/deleting/modifying machines
>
>   
a critical issue for the whole concept.

Ronny Aasen