[luau] Status of Mililani High School

[MonMotha]

Warren Togami wrote:
> Yesterday I was at Mililani from 8am to 5pm working on their SunRay and
> Windows Celeron lab.
> 
> As I mentioned earlier, the SunRay lab was extremely poorly put together
> with an underpowered Sun E250 server, initially with only 1 processor
> and 1GB of RAM.  Sun donated a second processor and another GB of RAM,
> but it still couldn't handle 30 clients.  After a wasted investment of
> $40,000, the school was suffering for an entire school year with an
> entire lab of computers that were almost useless.  It couldn't handle
> everyone running StarOffice at the same time, and logging out took
> something like 10 minutes.  Mililani was so displeased with the lab,
> that they were seriously thinking about getting rid of it for a loss,
> but nobody would want to buy it from them anyway.

Definately someone was not thinking, that system is barely powerful 
enough to handle a handful of active clients using today's cpu hungry 
apps, let alone 30.

> 
> Many of the issues here was an extremely poor understanding of Unix by
> whoever set this up.  There was no SSH, SSHD, gcc, grep, awk and many
> other tools.  The support person did almost entirely remote
> administration through telnet and FTP.  I had never touched Solaris in
> my life, and I knew things were horribly wrong on this setup.

This is not uncommon at all for a commercial UNIX system.  Most 
commercial UNIX systems don't need a C compiler because all the software 
for them is sold binary only.  The C compiler only takes up space and 
encourages people to use up valuable CPU cycles.  Also, until the advent 
of free compiles such as gcc, a C compiler was a VERY expensive tool. 
Commercial UNIX systems just do without them.

SSH is no where NEAR as popular in the commercial UNIX world as it is in 
the Linux and BSD world.  I have no idea why, but most commercial UNIX 
gurus seem to just like using telnet.

> 
....
> 
> Remaining problems:
>>From here a serious amount of work will be needed fixing up the Solaris
> installation.  It is currently running Solaris 7 and an old version of
> the SunRay protocol software, and it is uncertain whether Sun will
> supply a free upgrade or charge money for it.  IMHO Sun should provide
> it for free considering the amount of problems the school has had with
> their product.  Prior to this server swap, Ginlack, the Principal of
> Mililani was considering approaching "ActionLine" to make public this
> bad situation that was bordering scandalous, with a $40,000 lab being
> almost completely broken for over a year - what an interesting public
> relations nightmare that would have made, $40k wasted taxpayer money,
> hundreds of kids being denied an opportunity of technology learning.

If Sun won't cooperate, and you guys can get it cleared legally (blah 
blah - red tape here - blah blah), I would be willing to assist (not 
guaranteeing any results or that I'll be able to do it on my own) in 
reverse engineering the protocol enough to stick a Linux server in 
there.  It probably won't be a normal LTSP server as I gather that 
SunRays are more like dumb VNC clients (bascially a framebuffer on a 
network), and then don't run X.  Be aware that I'm now back at school so 
my free time just went down by about 90%.  Of course check that this 
hasn't been done already before we do this, but hopefully Sun will 
cooperate.  As with many big name installations (Cisco comes to 
mind...), things usually start breaking when you plug something in that 
doesn't have that company's logo on it.

> 
> I suspect that the current Solaris 7 installation is poorly secured and
> possibly already compromised.  Eventually I'd like to do a complete
> reinstall and I could use help from the group from people knowledgeable
> with Solaris.  For now though, all the GNU tools should be installed
> including a working compiler, then OpenSSH and VNC so it can be securely
> administrated remotely.  Java SDK should be installed.  StarOffice 5.2
> should be upgraded to StarOffice 6.0, but I need to write some scripts
> to handle automatic profile creation so people don't have to go through
> the somewhat confusing "Workstation" install for each user.  I already
> have these scripts for StarOffice 6.0 on Linux, so this shouldn't be too
> hard if the GNU tools that it depends on are installed.  After these
> things are stable, I'd like to replace the current CDE desktop with
> Gnome2.
> 

If you'd like, I can try to help with analyzing it.  Email me privately.

> 
> Mililani had a Windows Celeron lab served by an ancient Novell 4.10
> server doing only a print queue.  This lab was not uplinked into the
> school network, so they were running only IPX.  Unfortunately the lack
> of Internet makes it extremely difficult because they teach Oracle and
> Java in that room.  When they do plug the room into the Internet, the
> Windows machines easily DHCP and go online, but suddenly printing stops
> working and the Novell server beeps like crazy.
> 
> After some analysis Elayne and I figured out that the Intel print server
> appliance was talking only IPX, and it was severely confused when the
> campus network is connected to that lab.  It would somehow be confused
> by some other Novell server elsewhere on campus, lose its connection to
> the local Novell server (talking IPX) and stop printing.  We attempted
> to use its built in TCP/IP accessible control panel in order to enable
> SMB protocol printing, but it seemed to be completely unresponsive to
> anything over TCP/IP protocol despite its diagnostic printout saying it
> had a valid IP address.  I ended up setting up a temporary Linux NAT box
> using MonMotha's script to isolate IPX into that room, while allowing
> the Windows machines Internet access.  This is a temporary kludge until
> I get around to replacing the Novell print queue with a Samba print
> queue on that Linux box.  For now the teacher is happy, and I trained
> her in logging to the Linux console and enabling or disabling eth0.  She
> likes the flexibility of disabling the Internet within that room during
> certain classes so it wont be a distraction for the students when they
> don't need it for certain lessons.  This is the same teacher that needs
> an Oracle server for students to practice SQL statements.

Pleased to hear that :)

There are two methods of printing on Novell (I forget the names though): 
One where clients talk directly to to print server, and one where they 
talk through a queue on the server.  Novell 5.x can speak IP natively, 
so it may be able to translate if you can't get the pritner speaking IP. 
  The real solution of course is to fix the darned pritner and get 
everyone on native IP.

> 
> There is still the possibility of a Linux thin client lab for two
> classrooms.  More details on this later...
> 
> What Help Is Needed for Mililani
> --------------------
> 1. Solaris knowledgeable help.  I am going in today to install GNU tools
> and SSHD so I can continue working on it from home.  I think I can
> handle this much, but I will need help with more difficult things like
> operating system upgrades later.

I can usually find my way around on Solaris, but I'm not that great. 
I'd give a negatory on installing GNU tools for now; this ain't a Linux 
box, so don't treat it like one.  If you do feel compelled to install 
GNU tools, DEFINATELY USE THE SUN FREEWARE PACKAGES.

> 2. Oracle on Linux help.

Never used it.

> 3. Intel Netexpress print server appliance and Samba print queue setup. 
> I haven't done a Samba print queue before.  Has anyone configured that
> before?  I may need help in figuring out how the Intel appliance can be
> re-configured to work with anything other than IPX.

I have some experience with Novell, but I know a CNA, so I can ask her 
if she has any ideas.

> 4. Later the school is interested in Unix knowledgeable people coming in
> to help train some teachers and students in Solaris and Linux, and also
> mentor students in certain Unix related projects.

If you want to fly me in, I'd be happy to! :)

--MonMotha