[ILUG] "My First Remote Admin" or should I panic now?

[Conor Daly]

Hi all,

I'm putting together a linux network for a small college in Malawi
(Africa).  I have 30 donated PCs P166, 140Mb, 2.5Gb HD, 1Mb S3 graphics
and I'm building a server to go with it all.  The server is going to
handle the firewall task also.  The admin in the college isn't.  He's one
of the lecturers and currently has a few 386 PCs running MS Win3.1 and no
Linux experience.  I want to give him a network that is essentially plug
and play, with automated backup, a "restore" CD and lots of books!  I
anticipate, however, having to do some remote admin over a 56k dialup
line.

I've got a server up, I have a kickstart floppy made for client installs 
(fully automated, just put in the floppy, boot and walk away).  I have 
DHCP for IP addresses and routing, DNS, NFS for home directories, NIS for
centralised authentication, OpenOffice.org V1.0 for office suite.  

I have yet to install postfix for email, leafnode for news, apache for 
internal web services, perhaps squid for web caching, firewall for 
protection and IP masqing, ssh for remote access, samba for the Windows 
machines, backup scripts, cd writing, antivirus control (maybe procmail 
sanitiser), restore CD and printing...  Oh, and maybe twin disk raid so 
he can put in a new disk if one fails and have it rebuild itself.

All in all I have a bit to do yet.  The network plan looks a bit like
this...

Internet ---- modem ---- firewall ---- server ---- switch ____ client1
                            |            |                 |__ client2
                   IP masq _|    NIS ____|___ printing     |__ client3
                   routing _|    NFS ____|___ email        |
                  firewall _|    DHCP ___|___ news         |__ Win98 client
              port forward _|    DNS ____|___ intranet
                                 backup _|___ web proxy / cache
                                 samba __|___ applications
                                 ssh ____|___ antivirus
                                         |___ RAID


client machine
    |
    |__ NIS client
    |__ Desktops
    |      |__ gnome
    |      |__ KDE
    |      |__ WindowMaker
    |
    |__ Applications
    |      |__ Office
    |      |     |__ OpenOffice.org }__standalones and server
    |      |     |__ Koffice
    |      |     |__ abiword, gnumeric
    |      |__ Accounts
    |      |     |__ gnucash
    |      |__ Editors
    |      |     |__ gvim
    |      |     |__ kate
    |      |__ Learning
    |            |__ Redhat Manual }__standalones and server
    |            |__ HOWTOs        }
    |            |__ LDP (server only)
    |
    |__ Tasks
           |__ Syslog to server (except standalones)
           |__ Updates from server (needed?)
           |__ NFS mounts
                 |__ server:/home /home (user directories)
                 |__ server:/usr/local /usr/local (applications server)
                 |__ server:/etc/client/etc /etc  (central config of client)

Win98 client
    |
    |__ Samba
    |      |__ H:\ -> server:/home/${USER}
    |      |__ printer -> server:lp0
    |
    |__ Gateway / DNS -> server
    |
    |__ email / news -> server
    |
    |__ X server
           |__ Xwin32?
           |__ free X server? (cygwin + XFree86?) (I won't be there to setup...)


Shopping list...

30 x 15" monitors (identical spec each)
2  x 17" monitors (identical spec also)
3  x 8 port 10/100Mbps switch
25 x 5 meter cat5 patch cables
4  x 20 meter cat5 patch cables
1  x v.92 external modem
2  x phone line surge protectors
2  x 6 gang surge protected extension leads
3  x 100Mbps fast ethernet NICs
3  x 40Gb HDDs

Does anyone want to quote to supply this lot?

Have I forgotten anything?  Are there better options?  I have had one or
two hangs in testing that felt like NFS failures.  Is there a better
network filesystem available?

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
---------------------
Faenor.cod.ie
 11:52pm  up 22 days,  5:31,  1 user,  load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01
Hobbiton.cod.ie
 10:59pm  up 20 days, 13:25,  2 users,  load average: 0.14, 0.12, 0.09