Many have contributed to the documentation. Essentially it was written by Knut Yrvin and Andreas Johansen with many contributions from Klaus Ade Johnstad. Halvor Dahl, Skolelinux Drift AS is on the committee, and has made several contributions to structure and form, and content. In addition, there are contributions Snorre Løvås, UNINETT ABC, Finn-Arne Johansen from BzzWare AS, Ragnar Wissløff from LinuxLabs AS, and the reference group who participated in writing the documentation. The following participated in the reference group:

This documentation is maintained in a wiki. This is to ensure that operations staff can easily search for solutions to problems, update configurations, and so on.

See the copyright page for the copyright status of this document.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

The Program for Digital Competence is the Norwegian Ministry of Education's ICT plan from 2004 to 2008. One objective is to develop a set of recommended operating solutions and appropriate guidelines. It will provide schools and educational facilities with stability and predictability, so that computers, networks and basic services function properly. Operating solutions must be adapted to the institutions' size and needs.

This documentation contains guidelines based on practices customised for ICT-services within municipalities and counties. It is also applicable for commercial operators. Many municipalities have only one part-time position for computer networking operations within the schools. Overall just 13% of the municipalities in Norway have more than 20,000 inhabitants; 73 % have less than 10,000. Usually 1-4 people work full time in ICT within the municipal administration. When it comes to schools, there is often only one part-time ICT position, which can cover approximately 500-800 client computers at 5-10 schools, with around 1700-3200 students and teachers using the system.

The documentation is also suitable for larger organisations. It is based on the ISO 20000 standard for ICT operations, also known as the ICT Infrastructure Library. See Wikipedia for more information about the standard itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL

The first edition of this document was finished 19th July 2006.

The document is maintained in a wiki and can be updated at https://wiki.debian.org/!DebianEdu/Documentation/nb/ITIL. The previous version is available from http://developer.skolelinux.no/itil/oldindex.html

The document will be translated into English using https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/itil-revitalization/ from March 2015.

The Service Desk is where users ask questions or report problems. At school, the ICT-contact often forwards operational reports to the Service Desk. There may also be requests like setting up a new PC, or installing a program.

At school the ICT contact is the link to the Service Desk. The ICT contact also responds to the most common questions. Some questions are too difficult to manage at each school and must be forwarded to the Service Desk. It is important to have good cooperation between the school ICT contact and Service Desk operators. Tasks that are too extensive or too difficult to solve locally should be passed to the Service Desk.

Users may also get direct answers from an operator at the Service Desk. All operational enquiries go to the Service Desk. Enquiries will be assigned a case number. Anyone who has registered a case will receive an e-mail confirming that the inquiry has been received. During consideration of the case, those working with it at the Service Desk may send status updates to the user.

This way, users get one point of contact, and service desk operators get an overview of all of issues. Operations can be expected to troubleshoot across all parts of the organisation. Periodically the team leader needs to go through all issues and solutions in order to prioritize debugging and to prevent re-occurrence of errors, in order to provide schools with a stable operating environment.

Incidents can be reported by phone, fax, email or web form. Incidents that are more urgent must be prioritized. Incidents that need to be resolved quickly are usually reported by telephone. Less important events are usually reported via e.g. email. A member of the support staff should be assigned to the incident and will need to ask the user questions to investigate the problem.

All enquiries should be logged, and an email confirmation should be sent. It is important that the user should feel safe, and information about what might be the problem should be communicated to them. When the enquiry arrives at the service desk, a brief description of the incident should be logged. The enquiry may be from the ICT contact at the school, or from someone with an agreement to use the service desk. The event logging should happen as soon as possible, and it should be assigned a case number. The user should get a confirmation by email copy that the matter has been received and assigned an appropriate case number.

Previously, enquiries were written in paper logbooks. Today software is used to record the enquiries in a "Request Tracker". It is crucial for operations to log enquiries. This is basically for error handling, user requests, and prioritization of the various incidents. Log entries are important to prevent recurring errors. Because operational events are periodically reviewed, an assessment of fixes and priorities can be made. The log also provides a basis for improving the service by debugging problem services and applications based on what users perceive as problematic.

Thus the log of requests is a basic and necessary tool for both users and the service desk. There are several freely available systems for logging requests with good documentation <<FootNote(RT Essentials: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtessentials/chapter/index.html )>>. Skolelinux Drift uses RT <<FootNote(RT: Request Tracker: http://www.bestpractical.com/ )>> to handle requests.

One important thing when starting up support is not to get too tough a start. Do not try to achieve everything at once; bet rather on "quick wins" that keep the user informed, and aim for quick response times. It is also important to clarify who the service desk should forward events to, if they can not solve the issue themselves. The support desk must also check whether there will be disruptions for the user. This makes it quick and easy to give feedback.

For users it is important that incidents are dealt with. For the service office it is important that the incidents are handled correctly according to the service level agreement, and that work requested beyond what was agreed to is handled between management at the school and the system administration organisation.

The purpose of the ICT service is to prevent disturbances like shutdowns or software issues. Users will experience few problems with the ICT system if the ICT service has enough resources to handle operations, equipment and for enquiries to the Service Desk. Small or big problems will cause interruptions for users, so good handling of incidents is necessary.

In parachuting they call near-accidents "incidents". It is perhaps not quite the same in computer operations when something is not working. The purpose of dealing with incidents is to restore services as quickly as possible so that everything works normally. If something goes wrong, it must have the least possible impact on users. What is a "normal service" is agreed through an operating agreement describing the service level.

Statistics of incidents is important, especially if several people work within the organisation. When several people work together, it is easy to lose track of the work. Statistics will point out problem areas that must be addressed more thoroughly than a quick fix from the service desk. For example, there may be many requests to replace forgotten passwords, so it may be wise to let the teacher change passwords for pupils in their class.

An operational disturbance is defined as:

Examples of operational disturbances may be:

The examples show some of the most common operational issues. These are problems that prompt users to contact the school or the service desk. The ICT service must prioritize what must be handled straight away, and which problems need more time to resolve. To prioritize which problems need more comprehensive debugging, it is important to log all enquiries about malfunctions. Once one has an overview of the most common problems, appropriate actions can be taken.

Problem management is an "investigative" process. Known bugs are most often handled directly by the service desk. This is the most common form of event handling. To investigate unknown errors requires both common sense and instinct. Good operating people use instinct to go straight to the problem, find the solution and restore service as quickly as possible so that everything works normally.

Problem management is;

Problem control

Error control

Proactive control

The resources spent on IT systems in schools must be handled in a financially prudent manner in order to control the services used and the equipment / infrastructure. The equipment, software and services have a whole range of settings - this is configuration, or a logical model of how infrastructure and services are set up.

To manage configuration it must be identified, saved and maintained. One must also be able to keep track of different versions of the configurations. We call each part of a setup for a Configuration Item (CI). A configuration file may, for example, ensure that certain users have access to a few printers in the network. Another can make sure you get a buffer on diskless clients.

An updated database for configuration management is essential to ensure rapid and controlled handling of operational issues, or changes in the layout of machines, programs or services.

Many ICT services are not clever in handling changes in ICT systems. Leading to many disgruntled users. Surveys in the public sector in Denmark show that operating costs go down when you have good control on the changes. Therefore, it pays to involve users with training and participation related to the changes made.

Change-messages is entirely dependent on proper processes. This applies regardless of whether the changes are small or big. Therefore it is important to have in place the right people when making changes, both to give training and to have people to answer questions. This becomes especially important when adopting new releases of software and services. This is independent of whether one uses free or proprietary software.

Change Management should ensure that all changes are made in a standardized and right manner. It is important to anchor the decision about amending at the appropriate level in the organisation, Standard changes can often be pre-approved when they are done a few times. But major changes will often involve a higher decision level between school management and operator.

The reason why the management should be included is that an upgrade will often require training of users. It may be upgrading to a new browser or a new version of office software. This can quickly lead to a half day training in what is new in a program. Such changes must be agreed with the management. The changes must also be done without the other parts of the system stops working.

Those with responsibility for approving changes receives a so-called change message or RFC (Request For Change). When you have a RFC you can assess whether the change should be performed. Many times you have to clarify with management if optional changes should be made, and if so, when it will happen.

By changes one must also cooperate with the school's ICT responsible. One must ensure that changes occur when it fits with the schools plans. To implement significant changes without Change Management can lead to much dissatisfaction and additional inquiries to the Service Desk. This would provide significant extra work without this being planned. In addition, it may lead to a change that would soon be rolled back. You fast get twice as much work without ending anywhere else than back to start. Had one made the necessary approvals, may the change be done in a planned and straightforward manner.

Change Management is done to avoid more extra work than what's necessary. Making changes obviously requires more work, but you will get less extra work on the changes planned. One also avoids the need to roll back changes, because problems arise where users are unprepared for substantial changes.

When you for example update the entire system to a new version, make sure that everyone is informed. One must look into whether those affected by the change need training. The right professionals must prepare it all, so there are no surprises.

All responsibility must not land on the person responsible for managing versions of software, the release manager. Release handling is a process which preferably should work with changes that contains many minor changes. This usually happens when rolling out new systems and services, or the upgrading of the entire system to a new version.

Release handling is management and planning activities preparing for wanted changes. The changes can be small or large, where large changes can consist of many smaller changes. Release management goes on before initiating the actual job of installing software and hardware into production.

First the planning and testing of new releases are carried out. Then it all is rolled out it into production. Deployment is part of the infrastructure management. The procedure is to implement what is planned, tested and is ready within the systems for Configuration Management. Once everything is planned, tested and configurations are stored, then roll out the solution in production.

Usually, many service providers and suppliers are involved. This applies both to the acquisition of machines, the software used, and the recommended configurations. Good resource planning is crucial to package and distribute a new release in a good way for users. Cutting corners in this area can lead to equipment that doesn't work, or that goes unused because of deficiencies in the installation.

Release Management takes a comprehensive approach by the change in a service, and ensure that all parts of a publication is seen in context. This applies to both technical and non-technical factors.

The first thing you should ask yourself: "Do we really need software tools?" If that's true, it is crucial to examine the options thoroughly.

Taking a glossy brochure, and listening to sales talks, one is totally dependent on such tools. But good people, good process descriptions, good procedures and job descriptions are a basis for good service management. The need for, and how complicated the tools are, depend on the organsation's need for computer systems, and the size of the organisation.

In a small organisation, will a single freely accessible database be enough for logging and management of events (request tracker). But in larger organisations will one almost certainly need a sophisticated distributed and integrated tools for service management. It means linking all processes to a system for event handling.

Although tools can be important, they are not important in themselves. It's the tasks and processes to be done, and the information needed which are important. They will provide the necessary information to specify which tools are best suited to support the operations. Here are some reasons why one may use software for operational and service management:

Automatic tools allow:

A growing number of organisations sees the necessity of service control. It is often a usual practice to base decisions on historical and political considerations, rather than the current organisation's needs. Therefore it is important to ensure that the management commits to participating in and understanding the working methods in the organisation, and go through the existing processes and compare those with the organization's needs and "best practices".

Service Level Management is often shortened to the acronym SLA. Managing the the service level is about the quality of the operational services, measured in relation to what is agreed in a contract. There are definitely concrete figures for availability, response times, support, error correction etc.

The objective is to have control over the service level and improve the quality of the operational services. By repeating rounds the quality level is determined, monitored and reported. The purpose is to improve the contact between ICT administrators and users, to get an ICT service, to the agreed quality, delivered.

It is important to understand the different types of SLAs. One can choose from many types of agreements. The three most common types are:

All SLAs are to be administerated, reported and maintained. It can quickly become confusing and produce much work that does not provide a particular benefit. The purpose is to get an agreement that helps to improve the quality of service. Therefore it is useful to think carefully about that, when the agreement is made. Here is an overview of what is important to make sure about when you create an agreement for the service level management.

Organisations rarely have a full overview of their ICT spending. A 2001-survey of Norwegian municipalities showed that only 1 of 8 municipalities had an ICT budget. It is probably not better for schools. Putting in place an ICT budget is important. Often users think they pay too much for a service they are not happy with. This often creates conflicts between users and the ICT department.

It is very useful for both the operations center and the users to document the real ICT costs. Without this, it is difficult to budget appropriately. And mostly, it is difficult to make a cost/benefit assessment of existing ICT solutions. The rector should know the ICT budget as well as she would know the salary budget, or the budget for the teaching aids.

There are three major key processes related to financial management of ICT services:

Capacity planning is used to ensure that all parts of the ICT solution have sufficient capacity to safeguard users' requirements. This includes:

Capacity planning is all about balance:

The objective of capacity planning is to avoid surprises.

Good and stable availability of ICT services is obviously crucial for users.

Availability, seen from the user perspective, depends on the following assumptions:

Availability can be measured in several ways. But before we show examples we'll point out what may be difficult targeting figures. If we should make systematic efforts to availability, we have to clarify what the different things mean. What means for example a percentage of availability.

Let's say a "computer with computer program" is a service. If the computer program does not work one day, then the service is unavailable if all the other programs work fine. What if the computer program is unavailable for a classroom, but available for the rest of the school (because of an underlying service). This is a difficult matter to clarify and work on in practice.

Operating continuity or continuity management is often the most costly part of the work. High demands to operational continuity will require huge investments, which must be agreed upon whilst making the SLA. For example it can be agreed that there is no disaster plan for certain services. If you have a disaster plan the value is very low if not tested once in a while. Usually this is expensive. There are examples where customers and management have blocked the engine room and turned off power to test readiness of the IT department.

Operating continuity may be more needed in certain periods like under the examination periods. Then extra requirements can be needed in order to have equipments with backup ready in case of a hard disk failure on the server. But even this will require considerable additional work for the operational staff.

An IT coordinator told us that it might be just as well to postpone the exam one day, if something went wrong with the computer system. This costs a lot less than having a double number of servers at each school. There are examples of schools having had water leakage. Then it is usual to defer examination a day or two to repair the damage . One might think the same way when it comes to school data solutions. If you have a backup of home directories for pupils and teachers, you have time to consider without doubling the systems at each school. Then it is sufficient with one or two servers in reserve located at the municipality building, which quickly can be moved and connected at the school if something goes wrong.

Design and planning is about providing pervasive strategic guidelines for the development and installation of an ICT infrastructure to the institution's needs. It applies not only to infrastructure networks, computers, and applications. Also basic processes must be in place to get the technology to work. It applies to both Service Desk and processes for service management.

Avoiding scheduling, or cutting corners, is very risky. Therefore it is often wise to spend a little more time and effort on planning, which will reduce risk and provide significant benefits during implementation. Most projects that get stranded do so for lack of planning. Putting in place an ITIL process in an organisation depends entirely on preparation and planning, along with effective use of people, processes, and products (tools and technology).

It is very important to communicate with and talk to every part of the organisation while planning ITIL. In Norway this is regulated by the labour act §4-2:

The objective is to deliver the right ICT solutions for your organisation. These must be easy to maintain and adapted to the school's needs. The solution must be reasonable over a long time, also when the systems expand. During a design and planning process should one relate generally to a steering group and a reference group. A good project ensures to have skilled people in the steering group and people who contribute to the reference group. A good planner is clever to use those groups and other employees to bring up the good solutions.

We created a check list over activities and deliveries in an infrastructure project.

Feedback

Processes

Deliveries

As you can see extensive planning is carried out for an infrastructure project. An ICT project for schools in the municipality can quickly reach several million NOK (hundreds of thousands pounds) should one deliver 500-1000 computers with power, computer networks and software. With such amounts, it is important to have good and feasible plans with realistic budgets.

There are several examples of municipalities that have underestimated the need for funding for ICT in schools. They have installed lots of nice equipments remaining unused. Maybe the software could be missing. The network might be of poor quality or lacking power connectors. The municipality gets quickly an additional expense of 2 million NOK (around 165 000 pounds) if 800 machines in 10 schools should have a computer network and power connectors.

Good development plans are made to avoid surprises. Plans are also made to ensure a proper level of ambition with a realistic budget.

Definition:

The planning project shall have assessed what equipment schools have, and how much is available. From that, one creates a plan to roll out new equipment, or replace equipment, at each school and at the central operating service.

This is about placing the equipment where it is to be used. Set each PC on a table and connect it to the computer network with a network cable. Plug the power cable in to the electrical outlet. Connect the screen and put network cables in the correct switches.

The term roll-out (or deployment) is used both for placing the equipment, and for installing and configuring software on many machines. Rolling out software may also be referred to as "release management". But the word roll-out is short and fine, although one should make clear whether you are talking about hardware or software, which require totally different procedures.

Rollout management is about implementing what has been planned and designed in the release process. Getting out the equipment where it should be is often harder than we think, and takes considerable time. This is because many parties are involved either to deliver the equipment, or being among the many to receive it. In a way you could say that rollout is the same as a wheel bolt that holds the vehicle wheel in place on the shaft.

To get everything in place, is totally dependent on a lot of coordination. One must make good tactical planning, which involves both change management and project management. One must make sure that the roll out is associated with the design and planning process.

Danger may often occur by underestimating how deployment affects existing systems. Taking in use new solutions or upgrades will affect or change the organisation. Work routines are changed and one gets new ways to solve tasks.

In the school , the change means introducing ICT tools in school subjects. This is new and different for teachers. Many are unfamiliar with how the equipment can be used in teaching. At the same time, an operating and maintenance service should be in place to give schools a safe and stable ICT solution. This leads to changes in the organisation, which must be planned and requires resources. Therefore it is important to take this into consideration both under planning and rollout..

Definition:

Operations of the equipment is about having tools and machines in place as the basis for delivering the agreed upon ICT services. Operations of equipment has a strong focus on technology. This supports all other activities being done with the ICT systems. Often operations are seen as support tucked away in an office at the end of the corridor. As a hygiene service" .First when something goes wrong, operations personnel are contacted. A good operational service is still crucial for ICT tools to work properly. Without good operations one accepts the loss of time and that tasks cannot be solved. For example a school can get problems when using tests done with ICT tools.

One may ask whether one needs operations. Needing people to operate in today's high tech world? Is there no one who has found a way to solve operational tasks automatically? Why should you have people in the operations? The answer is usually that balancing between what is done automatically, and what people have to follow up with. An important realization is that most people want someone to talk to when a problem occurs. They want the error to be fixed, and they want feedback that everything goes smoothly. This type of error correction is not particularly easy to replace with machines.

A good operations department chooses to automate where possible. Simultaneously one needs people to monitor and keep control of the automated solutions. The automation must be further developed. There are also situations where automation is insufficient. Equipment breaks, and applications crash. You need someone who is handy and can rectify errors, or obtain substitutes for what cannot be repaired.

A poorly organised operations service wastes a lot of time fighting fires and working through manual procedures which could have been avoided with automation. Time spent automating can quickly pay for itself by freeing up time. This time can be used to improve support, provide more services and raise the quality for users. To get a permanent fix of errors, sometimes people might have to delay upgrades or remove services for temporary repair. This makes time to fix problems properly when monitoring the system manually would otherwise take up all the time.

Operations is mostly about preventing errors, or correcting equipments with reported errors. One is often not entirely familiar with causes of an error. One must troubleshoot to find the fault. Good operations' employees have flair. They use past experience to uncover errors. Then they go almost right to problem solution and correct the error.

A Configuration Item (CI) is part of an infrastructure. It often describes a wish for change or a question. Maybe to put in place a new service, or make adjustments to the services you already have in production. Often it is a question of upgrading some equipment, or obtaining something new.

Configuration items are important in configuration management when it comes to equipment and infrastructure. Often a configuration item is about whether systems shall:

Technical support ensures staff are available with the right skills to support services provided in the computer network, as well as staff to work at the Service Desk. As part of technical support one should have in-depth documentation with technical advice. The advice should provide information, guidance and examples of roll-out activities, and describe support and maintenance of all parts of the ICT service. To achieve this, the staff must know, or be able to obtain information, about the technologies, processes and documentation in use. As listed below, technical support consists of several activities:

In its "Program for Digital Competence 2004-2008", the Ministry of Education and Research sets objectives for the use of digital technology in the Norwegian school. "By 2008 we will have an infrastructure, an organisation and a culture that makes our school system to one of the world leaders when it comes to development and educational use of ICT in teaching and learning."

Being able to use digital tools is defined as a basic skill for all 13 school years. Pupils' development of basic skills is to be given priority in all subjects. The new curricula will mean that students must increasingly make use of digital tools when learning. Pupils should be able to use the same technology in work, that forms the basis for the final assessment, as they use when learning. When the examination is carried out using digital tools, this provides better coherence between the learning process and the final assessment.

A national survey in Norway (Skolenes digitale tilstand 2003, ITU, Feb. 2004) shows computers are seldom included in the subjects in primary school and computers are barely used by pupils in the school.

This plan builds on "Competence Plan for schools in Nittedal (2005-2008)" and implements that competence plan's objectives for digital knowledge in Nittedal's schools. In addition, this is a plan for investment and resource requirements associated with the operation of our Linux network.

We have different objectives for different groups in the school and to different aspects of the ICT commitments. Briefly put, our goals are:

Through these main objectives we will achieve:

To build and maintain the infrastructure you need a collaboration between many different professionals. As an example, we show what equipment areas you need expertise in. These are equipment areas that form part of the infrastructure in an ordinary school.

Besides to the different professionals needed to build the infrastructure, you will additionally need:

Organizationally it will look like this

To meet a new curriculum, schools must have sufficient computers available for their students and staff. This investment plan includes the actual costs of increasing the stock of computers at schools to reach national objectives. Those objectives call for at least one client machine or PC per four students. The requirements for equipment shall probably increase in a few years, so we expand that to a PC workstation per three students. All teachers should have access to a computer in their daily work at school.

Today the school net consists of servers and thin clients at the schools, and a shared server for backup in the municipality. Since we can use used computers as client machines in our network, the users' computers are not the most expensive (we buy used equipment and receive donated equipment from industry). The major costs lie in increased need for power outlets in classrooms, and possibly an increase in electricity bills in the schools.

The increased number of concurrent users will also increase support and operational costs. There will also be a need for tables and chairs for the new PC workplaces. In addition, all schools received a broadband connection at a fixed price. Later, we shall illustrate the total cost by doubling the stock of equipment.

Status for pc coverage 01.06.2005 is:

Total number of machines:

We envisage a combination of thin clients, diskless clients and laptops. Schools should have an infrastructure making it possible to roll out thin clients in every classroom. Here students can write, calculate, using the internet and make presentations. In addition the school will have the opportunity to lend laptops to different groups. In this way students get close to full PC coverage in certain work situations. The laptops are connected to servers in wireless networks. In this way teaching becomes more flexible.

For day-to-day operation of its computers, each school has an ICT contact. ICT contacts have from 2 to 4 hours allocated to this work per week. In addition, the municipality has an ICT tutor in a 50% position working with, among other things, competence and operations. The operation of the Linux network would gradually be transferred to the municipal ICT service in the school year 2005-2006.

On behalf of Debian Edu, Kapp næringshage (business park) made a calculation program which estimates the use of resources for ICT in schools. Today we operate the school network for over 3000 users with 2.1 FTEs. (Schools' ICT contacts allocate a total of 1.6 FTEs for their work, and 0.5 FTEs in the municipality.) When Kapp næringshage calculates our resource requirements for operation, they estimate the current needs to be 4.6 FTEs. This shows that the school has managed much with few resources.

Increased resources must primarily be placed in schools, because the schools' ICT contacts get busier when the number of PCs goes up. Increased number of pcs means increased use, and increased need for guidance in educational use of ICT tools.

Maintenance will increase faster than number of simultaneous users, but maintenance of the machines themselves will increase almost linearly with the number of machines. We want to focus more on the educational use of the equipment, and want most of the increase to be go towards use of ICT tools in school subjects.

There will also be a somehow greater need for increased resources for the municipality's ICT service, but because of economies of scale, the increase here will be small.

Today it is difficult for schools to prioritize hours to an ICT contact. Both because money for this must be taken from already stressed school finances, and because schools have lacked guidance on what and how much ICT contacts at schools will perform.

To achieve the objective of one computer per third student and one pc per teacher Option 1 is recommended. This option requires over 800 additional computers compared to current coverage of 506 client machines. Overall, we will then get just over 1300 client computers with emphasis on thin and diskless clients. Some machines will also be portable to provide additional flexibility in everyday school life.

Operating costs:

The large increase in operating expenses from current option 0 to option 1 is due to investment in ICT contact at schools. This increases from 10% to a full 100% FTE. The maintenance ICT contacts do today is around 10% FTE. This will probably increase to 20% with a doubling of the number of client machines. On increase to a full-time position, 80% will be used to support the educational use of ICT tools in school subjects. This means that principals at school must allocate resources for this, so that one follows the national curriculum from 2006.

Alternative 1:

Many schools have developed an activity plan for the use of ICT in the school. This should be included as attachment.

User case: Shall set up a computer network that scales so that one can either operate the system locally or connect to a centralized operational solution

Use case: How to install machines for an entire computer network for a school or many schools in a municipality.

<ul> <li><p>{{attachment:bilder50.png}}</p> <p>The different profiles on different servers.</p></li></ul>

User case: What's should be configured

User case: Choice of client machines. Should you choose silent machines or machines for multimedia. Should one have laptops to all or desktops.

Several types of technologies can provide application on the PC. Most common is thick clients operating locally on each computer. But there are other types of technology for applications on the desktop. Many have heard of graphic terminals. Examples include Citrix, !FreeNX and Windows Terminal Server. There are also other options like lowfat clients and real thin clients. This article describes the options and provides an overview of where the various terminal technologies do best. The reason for the article is the experience of enterprise solutions with centralized operation of the computer in many different buildings with low, medium or high network capacity.

Client technologies are described in the following order. Graphic terminals Citrix and !FreeNX, thin clients with X Windows, thick clients with Linux and Windows, client in between with Linux, and laptops. The following are examples of what server systems are commonly used in various business-oriented installations. A key factor for calculating costs is the number of concurrent users and the number of servers. Centralized management of computer equipment at several schools may in practice be compared with how the operations of ICT systems is done in larger companies. Often schools have more computers than the rest of the council's activities. Failure to think things through in what one chooses for client solutions in schools can quickly lead to a doubling of the number of employees in IT services in the municipality.

Citrix is the most known product for graphical clients. The company making this is product was established in 1989. The first graphical clients were made for the operating system OS/2. First Windows product was launched with NT 3.51 in 1995. There are several competing products to Citrix. One of the most successful is the NX technology. Briefly, you may run applications from a server with Citrix or NX. The screen is exported over the network from a server to a graphical terminal on a thick client.

Graphical clients have the strength that it would be seemless what ever kind of operating system that might be running on the client. One could use the applications on the server anyways. One can run standard office programs and client emails over an ISDN line with 64 kbps. That said, there are limitations in graphic software, whether it is used with multimedia or interactive graphics. The solution can quickly become of no practical use if a municipality distributes 30 or 50 graphic terminals at 5-6 schools with broadband with 2-8 Mbps. With this capacity one can not run interactive graphical applications. The Internet would be filled up with traffic, and the Citrix client would disconnect from the server machine.

With graphical clients the operations department must run two parallel paths for the maintenance of software. Maintenance occurs on all client computers and on local and central servers. For getting for example Citrix to work reasonably well, there must be deployed two additional server machines in each building, in addition to central application servers. In addition, it usually needs some thick clients also for use with multimedia. For example 1/3 of the machines in Oslo schools are thick clients to provide support for multimedia.

Thin clients was introduced in 1984 at MIT. This was around the same time Apple released the Macintosh GUI. The following year Microsoft shipped the first edition of MS-Windows. Actually thin clients are named X Window Systems and can be used on all possible platforms like Linux, Mac or Windows. X Windows turned things upside down. In practice applications run on a server, and the GUI is sent over the network to the client computer. The client computer runs a server program to display graphical windows. An X server may run your application windows from different programs running on many different servers. Thick clients also run the X Window system, using a virtual local network on the PC. All Unix systems with graphical user interfaces run X servers.

The main advantage of thin clients is the reuse of older equipment without increasing the complexity of operations. Many people use PCs with 233 MHz and 32 MB memory as thin clients. There is no need for local hard drive. Users can handle heavier graphics, sound and simple video. Several schools have opened up for the use of CD / DVD-Rom and USB memory stick at the thin clients. Operating personnel do not have to keep track of a separate operating system on each of the PCs. Everything is handled from the server. Each thin client uses around 2 Mbps network capacity during normal use. The performance of thin clients is significantly better than graphic terminals. Thin clients need in average fewer servers than graphic clients with for example Citrix, as shown by a study of The Department of Education in Oslo.

Thick clients or standard PCs is what is mostly used today. The term Personal Computers were used for the first time November the third 1962. The first PC with network and graphical user interface was created at Xerox PARK in 1973. Today it is the PC concept IBM launched in 1981 that is known and widespread. The entire operating system and all the software applications are installed on each client computer on a local data store. The most famous operating computers are Microsoft Windows and Linux. But there are also a number of other systems that many people use, including a version of BSD.

The advantage of Thick clients is that all programs are run locally, which can provide great flexibility and performance for users. Since most user programs run locally few central servers are needed. Solutions with thick clients can be relatively inexpensive to operate if one standardizes. On Windows, it is a great advantage to have mostly similar machines, which is difficult over time. It is quite common, for example, that the school has both 4 and 5 PC types. This affects operational costs. Linux is more flexible because the system can be more easily managed with many different PC types. Linux also requires less memory, and allows for longer use of older computers without loss of performance as the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) reports.

Diskless clients is another exciting technology. Today supported on Linux with Lessdisks or new LTSP. Novell had a virtual monopoly on diskless clients 15 years ago. Simply explained, the entire operating system and applications are installed on a server. The operating system is uploaded from the server to the client over the network. File, print, and Web services are handled by an operating system designed for networks. By the introduction of Windows 95, Novell met a technological barrier. Microsoft changed controlling Windows with registry instead of text files. Now it's only Linux and other Unix variants offering diskless clients.

The advantage with diskless clients is that you get the performance of thick clients with the operational advantage of thin clients. It means that the organisation can connect many client machines to a server, without installing locally an operating system on each client. Everything is handled from the server. The system supports audio, video, CD/DVD-Rom and USB memory stick. Today it is unusual to find used machines with less than 800 MHz processors and 256 MB of memories, which is well suited for the half thick clients. It is recommended to use local hard drive cache.

Portable machines are essentially thick clients. Laptops may in principle be used as thin clients, half thick clients or graphical terminals. But it is not very practical for several reasons. Portables should be used as thick client. In order to connect the laptop to a stationary computer network, one must choose what kind of services to be used.

There are significant challenges with portables in wireless networks with many users. Wireless networks have limited capacity. Portables are also subject to rough treatment, and require more frequent replacement than what is normal for stationary equipment. One should not run graphical terminals on laptops in wireless networks. This quickly becomes unstable when you have many users. Thick clients with Linux or Windows run fine. They can relatively easily be authenticated against the network. The user can access file directories, printing and other network services in a safe and secure manner. Several providers offer laptops in schools which connect to the computer network running Debian Edu.

User case: What's should be configured

User case: What's should be configured

User case: What's should be configured

User case: What's should be configured

User case: What's should be configured

User case: What's should be configured

Use Case: Because there is limited space on the Skolelinux/Debian-Edu CD only one Linux kernel is included, i.e. the lowest common denominator. That means a kernel working at as many as possible different types of hardware is included.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

You can find out the type of kernel running with the command uname -a. The command can be used later to ensure that you have upgraded to the required core. Then it may look like this:

tjener:~# uname  -a
Linux tjener.intern 2.6.8-2-386 #1 Thu May 19 17:40:50 JST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

Here runs a 386-core, which should work on just about all of the PCs. But it is not optimal for dual core processors or more than 940MB.

If you want a kernel for new servers with plenty of memory and multiple processors, you can download and install it afterwards. Debian's package system makes that easy.

Look at Section 8.9 for a more detailed description of apt-get and dpkg.

smp is the keyword to look for when you want a Linux kernel with support for more RAM than 940MB of memory and dual processors. The acronym stands for Symmetric Multi-Processors. The command is run from a shell which lists the number of cores ready for installation:

apt-cache search kernel-image | grep smp

. At the time this is written the following is listed:

kernel-image-2.4-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP
kernel-image-2.4-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4 on AMD K7 SMP
kernel-image-2.4.27-2-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4.27 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP
kernel-image-2.4.27-2-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4.27 on AMD K7 SMP
kernel-image-2.6-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP.
kernel-image-2.6-amd64-k8-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on AMD64 SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6-em64t-p4-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on Intel EM64T SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on AMD K7 SMP.
kernel-image-2.6.8-11-amd64-k8-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.8 on AMD64 SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6.8-11-em64t-p4-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.8 on Intel EM64T SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.8 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP.
kernel-image-2.6.8-2-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.8 on AMD K7 SMP.

There is no need to specify a specific kernel version like 2.4.27 or 2.6.8. Just use 2.4 or 2.6. This boils down to

kernel-image-2.4-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP
kernel-image-2.4-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.4 on AMD K7 SMP
kernel-image-2.6-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP.
kernel-image-2.6-amd64-k8-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on AMD64 SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6-em64t-p4-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on Intel EM64T SMP systems
kernel-image-2.6-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6 on AMD K7 SMP.

Now you just need to know what kind of processor you have eg. 686 (Intel), k7 (AMD) AMD64 or EM64T

As soon as which kernel fit the machine best it can be installed using the command

apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-<your processor type>-smp

If the machine contain an Intel Xeon one can use

apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-686-smp

If a 2.4 kernel is used

apt-get install kernel-image-2.4-<your processor type>-smp

With an AMD Athlon(TM) MP 2000 it is possible to use

apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-k7-smp

When you install the new kernel, you may see something like this:

tjener:~# apt-get update
tjener:~# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-686-smp
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp
Suggested packages:
  lilo kernel-doc-2.6.8 kernel-source-2.6.8
Recommended packages:
  irqbalance
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  kernel-image-2.6-686-smp kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 15.3MB of archives.
After unpacking 44.9MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp 2.6.8-16 [15.3MB]
Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main kernel-image-2.6-686-smp 101 [2154B]
Fetched 15.3MB in 1m13s (208kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp.
(Reading database ... 80762 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp (from .../kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp_2.6.8-16_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package kernel-image-2.6-686-smp.
Unpacking kernel-image-2.6-686-smp (from .../kernel-image-2.6-686-smp_101_i386.deb) ...
Setting up kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp (2.6.8-16) ...
File descriptor 3 left open
File descriptor 4 left open
File descriptor 5 left open
File descriptor 6 left open
File descriptor 7 left open
    Finding all volume groups
    Finding volume group "vg_data"
    Finding volume group "vg_system"
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub .
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.list file... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst .
Searching for splash image... none found, skipping...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-686-smp
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-386
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done
Setting up kernel-image-2.6-686-smp (101) ...

As shown, you were asked to install kernel-image-2.6-686-smp, and it automatically translated to install kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp. It was also suggested to install some other packages that might be useful.

Reboot the machine with the command: shutdown -r now

tjener:~# uname  -a
Linux tjener.intern 2.6.8-2-686-smp #1 SMP Thu May 19 17:27:55 JST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

ltspserver00:~# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       4074752    4045556      29196          0     339248    2327780
-/+ buffers/cache:    1378528    2696224
Swap:      1835000       5852    1829148

ltspserver00:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : !GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.66GHz
 
processor       : 1
vendor_id       : !GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.66GHz
 
processor       : 2
vendor_id       : !GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.66GHz
 
processor       : 3
vendor_id       : !GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.66GHz

Use case: Installing new programs or update programs

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

To install packages one needs to tell from where they should be fetched. In other words, which package archive to use.

One can specify package archives in the file /etc/apt/sources.list

You can work with package management on the command line. There is more graphical applications like for example KPackage 7 or Webmin 12

This section provides a quick introduction to using the command line for administrating packages.

This is the content of a file with references to package repositories on the Internet or from a CD ROM:

#deb file:///cdrom/ sarge main local
 
deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux edu _Sarge_ - Unofficial i386 Binary-1 (20050808)]/ unstable contrib local main non-free
 
 1. deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free
 1.deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main contrib non-free
   1. Use (by uncommenting) either http or ftp, NOT both
   1. http based apt source: ----------------
 1. deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free
 1. deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
 1. deb http://ftp.skolelinux.no/skolelinux/ sarge local
   1. ftp based apt source: -----------------
 1. deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free
 1. deb ftp://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
 1. deb ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/skolelinux/ sarge local

Note that the lines without hashtag (#) can be used as reference to the package archive. The example shows that one only gets packets from the CD ROM used during installation. Other archives are not activated. When doing this, one should open for security upgrades. So you can try other archives for more packages.

As a start it should look something like this:

#deb file:///cdrom/ sarge main local
 
 1.deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux edu _Sarge_ - Unofficial i386 Binary-1 (20050808)]/ unstable contrib local main non-free
 
 1.deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main contrib non-free
   1. Use (by uncommenting) either http or ftp, NOT both
   1. http based apt source: ----------------
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.skolelinux.no/skolelinux/ sarge local
   1. ftp based apt source: -----------------
 1. deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free
 1. deb ftp://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
 1. deb ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/skolelinux/ sarge local

Note that there is a # sign in front of the line containing "deb: cdrom". There is no need to load packages from a CD-ROM when one can get everything from the Internet.

If you add a new line to this file, you must update the database with information about what that is available.

See chapter 13 for other lines to add as package sources.

Use case: Update the package repository with a summary of updated programs.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

The selection of available packages is constantly updated. The most common is new security updates. New versions of the software can also be posted. Therefore, one must update the package archives. This is done with the following command

tjener:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.skolelinux.no sarge/local Packages [17.4kB]
Ign http://ftp.skolelinux.no sarge/local Release
Get:2 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/main Packages [20B]
Get:3 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/main Release [102B]
Get:4 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/contrib Packages [20B]
Get:5 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/contrib Release [105B]
Get:6 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/non-free Packages [20B]
Get:7 http://non-us.debian.org sarge/non-US/non-free Release [106B]
Get:8 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main Packages [3347kB]
Get:9 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/main Packages [155kB]
Get:10 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/main Release [110B]
Get:11 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/contrib Packages [538B]
Get:12 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/contrib Release [113B]
Get:13 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/non-free Packages [20B]
Get:14 http://security.debian.org sarge/updates/non-free Release [114B]
Get:15 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main Release [95B]
Get:16 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/contrib Packages [56.2kB]
Get:17 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/contrib Release [98B]
Get:18 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/non-free Packages [58.4kB]
Get:19 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/non-free Release [99B]
Fetched 3635kB in 23s (157kB/s)
Reading Package Lists... Done

This command must be executed before an upgrade or before adding new packages.

Use case: Updating the installed packages to a newer version if one is available

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

All installed packages can be upgraded to newer versions using the command

apt-get upgrade

tjener:~# apt-get upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apache apache-common apache2-utils bsdutils cfengine cfengine-doc courier-authdaemon courier-base courier-imap courier-imap-ssl courier-ldap
  courier-ssl cpio debian-edu-config debian-edu-install education-common education-main-server education-networked education-tasks libapr0 libice6
  libmysqlclient12 libpam-ldap libpcre3 libsensors3 libsm6 libsnmp-base libsnmp5 libssl0.9.7 libungif4g libx11-6 libxext6 libxft1 libxi6 libxmu6 libxmuu1
  libxp6 libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxt6 libxtrap6 libxtst6 localization-config lynx mount mysql-common ntp ntp-refclock ntp-server ntpdate openssl python2.3
  slbackup snmp squid squid-common tcpdump util-linux xdebconfigurator xfree86-common xlibs xlibs-data
62 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 23.7MB of archives.
After unpacking 225kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Just press Enter or 'Y' and Enter. The packages will be downloaded and installed automatically. One will get a change log when the upgrade begins.

Once you have upgraded, you can delete the packages downloaded in the directory/var/cache/apt/archives/. Use the command

apt-get clean

to clear the archive. This should be done occasionally. Otherwise /var becomes full.

kdeaddons (4:3.1.0-4) unstable; urgency=low
 
  * Rebuilt against libvorbis0a (closes: #184713).
  * Removed alpha compile flags.
  * Fresh admin/ sync.
 
 -- Ben Burton <bab@debian.org>  Sun, 16 Mar 2003 16:00:19 +1100
 
kdeaddons (4:3.1.0-2) unstable; urgency=low
 
  * First KDE3 upload to debian!
  * Applied Ewald Snel's patch for xine support.
  * Rolled the epoch to aid upgrades from the unofficial repository on
    ftp.kde.org.. *sigh*

quanta (1:3.0pr1-1) unstable; urgency=low
 
  * New upstream release.
  * Built for KDE3.
 
 -- Ben Burton <benb@acm.org>  Wed,  4 Sep 2002 10:36:12 +1000
 
(END)

Fetched 60.2MB in 11m24s (87.9kB/s)
Reading changelogs... Done
apt-listchanges: Do you want to continue? [Y/n]?

Use case: Want a summary of installed packages

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

To get a summary of the installed packages run this command

dpkg --list | more

Note that when the first letters in the list is "ii" it mean the package is fully installed.

To get the status of one particular package one can use grep to search for it:

tjener:~# dpkg --list | grep apache
ii  apache         1.3.33-6       versatile, high-performance HTTP server
ii  apache-common  1.3.33-6       support files for all Apache webservers
ii  apache2-utils  2.0.54-4       utility programs for webservers

Use case: Often it is hard to remember the name of a package.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

To find a particular package one can use a search term with this command:

apt-cache search <package name>

Try this if there is too much text on the screen

apt-cache search <package name>|more

The two symbols < and > must not be used. They are only used in this example.

tjener:~# apt-cache search apache
apache - versatile, high-performance HTTP server
apache-common - support files for all Apache webservers
apache-dbg - debug versions of the Apache webservers
apache-dev - development kit for the Apache webserver
apache-doc - documentation for the Apache webserver
apache-perl - versatile, high-performance HTTP server with Perl support
apache-ssl - versatile, high-performance HTTP server with SSL support
apache-utils - utility programs for webservers (transitional package)

As the screen dump show there are a lot more related to apache than the packages already installed.

User case: Want to get information about the package. There may be dependencies to other packages etc..

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

The command

apt-cache showpkg <package name>

and

<apt-cache policy <package name>

gives details about the package.

tjener:~# apt-cache showpkg kdissert
Package: kdissert
Versions:
0.3.8-1(/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_sarge_main_binary-i386_Packages)
 
Reverse Depends:
Dependencies:
0.3.8-1 - kdelibs4 (2 4:3.3.2-4.0.2) libc6 (2 2.3.2.ds1-4) libgcc1 (2 1:3.4.1-3) libqt3c102-mt (2 3:3.3.3) libstdc++5 (2 1:3.3.4-1)
Provides:
0.3.8-1 -
Reverse Provides:
tjener:~# apt-cache policy  kdissert
kdissert:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.3.8-1
  Version Table:
     0.3.8-1 0
        500 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main Packages

So one notices that the package kdissert is not installed, but available for installation in version 0.3.8-1 from `http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main`

Use case: Want to install a program or a program package.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

When you have found the package to be installed, run the command

apt-get install <package name>

If you want to see what happened during the installation you should run a simulation first with the command

apt-get install <package name> --simulate

tjener:~# apt-get install  aterm --simulate
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  aterm
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst aterm (0.4.2-11 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf aterm (0.4.2-11 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
tjener:~# apt-get install  aterm
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  aterm
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 91.6kB of archives.
After unpacking 287kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main aterm 0.4.2-11 [91.6kB]
Fetched 91.6kB in 1s (71.0kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package aterm.
(Reading database ... 32924 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking aterm (from .../aterm_0.4.2-11_i386.deb) ...
Setting up aterm (0.4.2-11) ... 

Use case: Wants to remove certain packages that will not be used.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

To find a specific package to be removed, use the commands listed above.

When you have found the name of the package run the command

apt-get remove <package name>

If you want to see what happens when you remove the package, you may simulate this with the command

apt-get remove <package name> --simulate

tjener:~# apt-get remove  aterm --simulate
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  aterm
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Remv aterm (0.4.2-11 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
tjener:~# apt-get remove  aterm
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  aterm
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 287kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 32936 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing aterm ...

User case: Want a specific version of a package. It can for example be a previous release of a program.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

When installing a package with the command

apt-get install <package name>

then the newest package is installed. Sometimes an older version instead of the newest version is wanted.

apt-get install <package name>=older_version_number

To get an older version of the Webmin backup module one can run

apt-cache showpkg webmin-slbackup

to get a summary of the available version

tjener:~#  apt-cache policy webmin-slbackup
webmin-slbackup:
  Installed: 0.0.10-1
  Candidate: 0.0.10-1
  Version Table:
 *** 0.0.10-1 0
        500 http://ftp.skolelinux.no sarge/local Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.0.9-1 0
        500 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main Packages

Here one can see that there are two versions available. Both 0.0.9-1 and 0.0.10-1

If the 0.0.9-1 version of the program is wanted it can be installed using the following command

apt-get install webmin-slbackup=0.0.9-1

tjener:~# apt-get install webmin-slbackup=0.0.9-1 --simulate
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  webmin-slbackup
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst webmin-slbackup [0.0.10-1] (0.0.9-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf webmin-slbackup (0.0.9-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
tjener:~# apt-get install webmin-slbackup=0.0.9-1
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  webmin-slbackup
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 22.0kB of archives.
After unpacking 131kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main webmin-slbackup 0.0.9-1 [22.0kB]
Fetched 22.0kB in 0s (23.6kB/s)
dpkg - warning: downgrading webmin-slbackup from 0.0.10-1 to 0.0.9-1.
(Reading database ... 32924 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace webmin-slbackup 0.0.10-1 (using .../webmin-slbackup_0.0.9-1_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement webmin-slbackup ...
Setting up webmin-slbackup (0.0.9-1) ...

User case: Sometimes it is needed to download a package from other places, not located in a Debian web archive. Opera browser is such a package.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

Download the package from the home page of the creators of the program. This could for example be Opera. The program is installed using the following command:

dpkg -i <full path to the package>

. If you first want to simulate this try

dpkg --no-act -i <full path to package>

tjener:~# dpkg --install --no-act opera_8.51-20051114.5-sharedqt_en_sarge_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package opera.
(Reading database ... 32924 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking opera (from opera_8.51-20051114.5-shared-qt_en_sarge_i386.deb) ...
tjener:~# dpkg --install  opera_8.51-20051114.5-shared-qt_en_sarge_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package opera.
(Reading database ... 32924 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking opera (from opera_8.51-20051114.5-shared-qt_en_sarge_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of opera:
 opera depends on libqt3c102-mt; however:
  Package libqt3c102-mt is not installed.
dpkg: error processing opera (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 opera

dpkg requires more manipulations than apt-get because it does not handle package dependencies. This means you may need to run apt-get immediately afterwards with additional parameter. For example, it helps to run apt-get --fix-broken to tidy up

tjener:~# apt-get install --fix-broken --simulate
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 liblcms1 libmng1 libqt3c102-mt libxcursor1 libxft2
Suggested packages:
  nas liblcms-utils libqt3c102-mt-psql libqt3c102-mt-mysql libqt3c102-mt-odbc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 liblcms1 libmng1 libqt3c102-mt libxcursor1 libxft2
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Inst libaudio2 (1.7-2 Debian:3.1r0/stable) [opera ]
Inst liblcms1 (1.13-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable) [opera ]
Inst libmng1 (1.0.8-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable) [opera ]
Inst libxcursor1 (1.1.3-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable) [opera ]
Inst libxft2 (2.1.7-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable) [opera ]
Inst libqt3c102-mt (3:3.3.4-3 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf libaudio2 (1.7-2 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf liblcms1 (1.13-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf libmng1 (1.0.8-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf libxcursor1 (1.1.3-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf libxft2 (2.1.7-1 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf libqt3c102-mt (3:3.3.4-3 Debian:3.1r0/stable)
Conf opera (8.51-20051114.5 )
tjener:~# apt-get install --fix-broken
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 liblcms1 libmng1 libqt3c102-mt libxcursor1 libxft2
Suggested packages:
  nas liblcms-utils libqt3c102-mt-psql libqt3c102-mt-mysql libqt3c102-mt-odbc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 liblcms1 libmng1 libqt3c102-mt libxcursor1 libxft2
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 3489kB of archives.
After unpacking 8753kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main libaudio2 1.7-2 [71.5kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main liblcms1 1.13-1 [123kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main libmng1 1.0.8-1 [171kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main libxcursor1 1.1.3-1 [23.7kB]
Get:5 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main libxft2 2.1.7-1 [54.4kB]
Get:6 http://ftp.debian.org sarge/main libqt3c102-mt 3:3.3.4-3 [3045kB]
Fetched 3489kB in 16s (212kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libaudio2.
(Reading database ... 33027 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libaudio2 (from .../libaudio2_1.7-2_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package liblcms1.
Unpacking liblcms1 (from .../liblcms1_1.13-1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libmng1.
Unpacking libmng1 (from .../libmng1_1.0.8-1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libxcursor1.
Unpacking libxcursor1 (from .../libxcursor1_1.1.3-1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libxft2.
Unpacking libxft2 (from .../libxft2_2.1.7-1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libqt3c102-mt.
Unpacking libqt3c102-mt (from .../libqt3c102-mt_3%3a3.3.4-3_i386.deb) ...
Setting up libaudio2 (1.7-2) ...
 
Setting up liblcms1 (1.13-1) ...
 
Setting up libmng1 (1.0.8-1) ...
 
Setting up libxcursor1 (1.1.3-1) ...
 
Setting up libxft2 (2.1.7-1) ...
 
Setting up libqt3c102-mt (3.3.4-3) ...
 
Setting up opera (8.51-20051114.5) ...

Armed with different commands from earlier in this chapter, we can now confirm that Opera is already installed

tjener:~# apt-cache policy opera
opera:
  Installed: 8.51-20051114.5
  Candidate: 8.51-20051114.5
  Version Table:
 *** 8.51-20051114.5 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
tjener:~# dpkg --list|grep opera

ii opera 8.51-20051114. The Opera Web Browser

Use case: Want to find a program name or file in a package

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

You get an overview with the command

dpkg --listfiles <package name>

tjener:~# dpkg --listfiles opera
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/opera
.
.
.
/etc
/etc/opera6rc
/etc/opera6rc.fixed

User case: Want to find the package a file came from.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

dpkg --search <filename>

This can look like this

tjener:~# dpkg --search /etc/opera6rc.fixed
opera: /etc/opera6rc.fixed

Use case: Perhaps an important system file was deleted by accident, and there is no backup.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

When using the command

dpkg --search <filename>

Warning: Never unpack packages in the root directory

if one finds which package a file came from. One can extract the package to get back the systemfile like shown later.

First you need to fetch the deb package in question. This can be done by placing it in the /tmp directory. Use this command to unpack the files in this directory

dpkg --vextract <package name> /tmp

. Then the required directories will be created in /tmp and the files are placed there.

dpkg --vextract <package name> /tmp

Use case: Some packages are often installed. For others it is useful to avoid downloading them from the Internet.

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

The apt-get command makes it easy to install packages from the Internet. But apt-get will use significant network capacity when programs are downloaded from Debian archives on the Internet. Because of that, it is possible to tell apt-get to use a local package repository. This way it is possible to install already downloaded packages simply by using apt-get. This provides quick installation.

mkdir /var/www/dpkg

cp /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb /var/www/dpkg

cd /var/www/

dpkg-scanpackages dpkg /dev/null | gzip -9c > dpkg/Packages.gz

After that, add a new line to the file /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb file:///var/www dpkg/

And then the command apt-get update must be executed as usual to update the packages in the database.

Use case: Some times it is required to log into Coyote Linux when no web browser is available. Perhaps the command line is preferred? Then ssh can be used to connect to Coyote Linux.

If you are logged into a machine in a Skolelinux / Debian Edu network you can use

ssh -l root 10.0.2.1

to log in on Coyote Linux

If you are outside a Skolelinux / Debian Edu network, the value 10.0.2.1 can be replaced with the appropriate value for the network card with the WAN in. In this case it might be ssh -l root 192.168.1.10

Here you will meet the same options present as when logged into the Coyote Linux web administration. This is presented in a text based menu.

               Coyote Linux Gateway -- Configuration Menu
 
 
  1) Edit main configuration file         2) Change system password
  3) Edit rc.local script file            4) Custom firewall rules file
  5) Edit firewall configuration          6) Edit port forward configuration
 
  c) Show running configuration           f) Reload firewall
  r) Reboot system                        w) Write configuration to disk
 
  q) quit                                 e) Exit
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Selection:

The options will be approximately the same as those provided when logged into Coyote Linux for web administration. See section 3.7 for a quick description of the menu choices.

When selecting q) quit you will end up on the command line in Coyote Linux. If you need to get back to the main menu in Coyote Linux, write menu and press Enter.

If you see this when you try to log into Coyote Linux

klaus@tjener:~$ ssh 10.0.2.1 -l root
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
34:b7:a3:9b:06:4c:e2:30:1b:0d:03:45:7b:22:b7:dd.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /skole/tjener/home0/klaus/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /skole/tjener/home0/klaus/.ssh/known_hosts:27
RSA host key for 10.0.2.1 has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

This is most likely because one logged in earlier into another machine with the IP address 10.0.2.1, or because the network card in Coyote Linux has been changed. It could also be an attack from an unknown man in the middle. The solution is to remove the key, in this case line number 27 in the /skole/tjener/home0/klaus/.ssh/known_hosts file.

Use case: Which commands can be used to get the menu or to get an overview of the status of the firewall?

Main author: Klaus Ade Johnstad

Useful commands in Coyote Linux

Useful to figure out if the network is working. The command checks if there is a connection to the Skolelinux / Debian Edu main server.

coyote# ping -c5 10.0.2.2
PING 10.0.2.2 (10.0.2.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.9 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.5 ms

This command gives the duration since the last reboot for Coyote Linux.

   coyote# uptime\n  2:37pm  up 80 days,  7:55, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

This command displays information about the Linux kernel running on the machine. It lists things like memory, processor and network card. If there is too much output from dmesg you can send the output through a so called pager program like "more" and use Space to read everything, dmesg|more

Show extra information about the network cards.

coyote# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:FC:F8:D2:44
          inet addr:10.0.2.1  Bcast:10.0.3.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:314723 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:312105 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:53700845 (51.2 !MiB)  TX bytes:277496136 (264.6 !MiB)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x7000
 
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:18:A8:B1:BA
          inet addr:192.168.100.133  Bcast:192.168.100.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:307395 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:281202 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:272404311 (259.7 !MiB)  TX bytes:47880640 (45.6 !MiB)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xb800 Memory:e3000000-e3000038
 
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:14565 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14565 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1290756 (1.2 !MiB)  TX bytes:1290756 (1.2 !MiB)

This command lists up driver modules. This is useful to see which modules are used by network cards.

coyote# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
eepro100               17516   1
3c59x                  24408   1
mii                     1852   0 [eepro100]
ip_nat_quake3           1608   0 (unused)
ip_nat_mms              2448   0 (unused)
ip_nat_h323             2044   0 (unused)
ip_nat_amanda           1020   0 (unused)

This is a list showing that the driver modules for the network card are loaded. For Intel pro100 the module is named eepro100 and for 3Com the module is named 3c59x (which is valid for cards with type names 3c590, 3c595, 3c900, 3c905). See section 3.12

Is useful to figure out where the Internet packages move. If there are problems, it is useful to see the path the Internet packages use.

Another command giving information about the state of the network cards.

Coyote running configuration display utility.
 
Internet    (eth1): UP
LAN network (eth0): UP
 
-------------Internet configuration--------------
IP Address   192.168.100.133 (Static)
Netmask      255.255.255.0
Gateway      192.168.100.2
----------------LAN configuration----------------
IP Address   10.0.2.1
Netmask      255.255.254.0
Broadcast    10.0.3.255
----------------DNS configuration----------------
domain localdomain
nameserver 213.184.200.1
nameserver 213.184.200.2
-------------------------------------------------
10:51am up 7 days, 20:53, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
 
Press enter to return to system menu.

The command is used to see how much memory is available and how much is used. This machine has 32 MB memory.

coyote# free
              total         used         free       shared      buffers
  Mem:        30860         6004        24856            0            0
 Swap:            0            0            0
Total:        30860         6004        24856

This command starts the Coyote Linux menu

               Coyote Linux Gateway -- Configuration Menu
 
 
  1) Edit main configuration file         2) Change system password
  3) Edit rc.local script file            4) Custom firewall rules file
  5) Edit firewall configuration          6) Edit port forward configuration
 
  c) Show running configuration           f) Reload firewall
  r) Reboot system                        w) Write configuration to disk

coyote#reboot

This command does a reboot of Coyote Linux

coyote#halt

Here is Coyote Linux turned off

Use case:

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

Use case:

Author: Klaus Ade Johnstad.

Co-author: Knut Yrvin

between

Driftselskapet AS, Maskinrommet 1, 0313 Oslo

Org.no.: 989 313 313

(hereafter called The Vendor)

and

NN

Org.No:

(hereafter called The Customer)

The parties have reached an agreement on the delivery of operational services (hereinafter The Agreement) on subsequent contractual terms. The following appendixes are part of The Agreement:

The agreement is valid from the signing date and a minimum of 12 months from The Delivery date. The agreement is then renewed automatically for periods lasting 12 months unless one of the parties denounces the Agreement in writing, three months before the expiry of a contract period.

The contract is signed in two - 2 - copies, and each of the parties keeps one - 1 - copy.

Place: .............................

Date: .................. 2006

For The Vendor: ....................................................

For The Customer: ....................................................