samba - Feb 2006 - hardware and configuration for school's servers

Hi

I am managing samba server in school.
"Server" is on VIA 800MHz processor with 80GB IDE hard drive.
there is no domain at the moment, just simple sharing, security share 
and smbpasswd file.
I have 300 computers (each classroom has 20) with winxp sp2 auto logon 
limited local account,
300 users (6 intake groups).
Passworded home directorys on Samba and Pupils have access to it by 
clicking on icon which
fire up small VBS script which ask them for username and password and map
"My Documents" for them. Each classroom has a printer and on each 
machine in classroom it is installed as local printing to port.
I am managing users accounts using my small sh and perl scripts.
"Deploying" or installing software on computers using perl
(Win32::OLE)
scrips which copy my own version of installer (made using Nullsoft NSIS)
and fire it up using local administrator account.

I was asked to build the system based on samba which give each pupil at 
least 10 GB home
space and will be save, easy (and secure?) and of course if it goes down
pupils will be able to have normal lessons.

I have to ask, Is it a good idea to buy 6 cheap VIA servers, each for a 
year group,
configure sambas as a simple home sharing on each of them?
Or couple of Dual Opterons, 2GB mem, 3Ware, RID-5, Gbit network, Domain 
with LDAP password backend?
Or maybe 6 of them and 7 as database only?

What hardware and samba configuration would be the best for my school?


BTW: Is it possible to use tbdedit in sh loop script which pick up 
usernames and passwords from CSV/txt file?

-- 
Regards,
pawcio

pawciobiel@kozmianet.kom.pl schrieb:
> Hi
> 
> I am managing samba server in school.
> "Server" is on VIA 800MHz processor with 80GB IDE hard drive.
> there is no domain at the moment, just simple sharing, security share 
> and smbpasswd file.
> I have 300 computers (each classroom has 20) with winxp sp2 auto logon 
> limited local account,
> 300 users (6 intake groups).
> Passworded home directorys on Samba and Pupils have access to it by 
> clicking on icon which
> fire up small VBS script which ask them for username and password and map
> "My Documents" for them. Each classroom has a printer and on each
> machine in classroom it is installed as local printing to port.
> I am managing users accounts using my small sh and perl scripts.
> "Deploying" or installing software on computers using perl
(Win32::OLE)
> scrips which copy my own version of installer (made using Nullsoft NSIS)
> and fire it up using local administrator account.
> 
> I was asked to build the system based on samba which give each pupil at 
> least 10 GB home
> space and will be save, easy (and secure?) and of course if it goes down
> pupils will be able to have normal lessons.
> 
> I have to ask, Is it a good idea to buy 6 cheap VIA servers, each for a 
> year group,
> configure sambas as a simple home sharing on each of them?
> Or couple of Dual Opterons, 2GB mem, 3Ware, RID-5, Gbit network, Domain 
> with LDAP password backend?
> Or maybe 6 of them and 7 as database only?
> 
> What hardware and samba configuration would be the best for my school?
> 
> 
> BTW: Is it possible to use tbdedit in sh loop script which pick up 
> usernames and passwords from CSV/txt file?
Czesc,

Well, 10 GB for each of 300 students is pretty much - you may need 3000 GBs!

You may do some folder redirection, and you can also use poledit to 
create a NTConfig.pol file which will limit their account to some size 
(i.e., if their roamin profile is bigger that what you set, they will 
not be able to log out, and will be prompted to remove some files).

I would also use ldapsam instead of tdbsam - thera good tools to manage 
lots of users, like LAM - http://lam.sourceforge.net

With 300 users and 300 computers it makes together 600 users, I'm sure 
one computer can handle this amount of authentication.

So, if you have 6 groups, that makes 50 users * 6 year groups = 300.

I would make a:

* PDC Samba + master OpenLDAP one one server, 2x big disk (RAID1) for 
backups (I'd use rsync for that run nightly + some scripts that make 
"hardlinked" backups to save space); no logons there if possible.
Also could be Unattended server (http://unattended.sf.net) for automated 
Windows installations.

* BDC Samba + OpenLDAP slaves for each year group, even if you don't 
have RAID1 on them (and something fails), everything should be fine if 
you have some backup strategy.
You could also estimate if it's better to have a separate server for a 
year group, or for names/surnames - like server 1: surnames A-F, server 
2: surnames g-L etc.



-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org
WPKG - deploy software with Samba