German Foreign Ministry Migrates Desktops To OSS 147
ruphus13 writes "Here's another example of 'German Engineering' — The Foreign Ministry in Germany is migrating all of its 11,000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other open source applications. According to the article, 'this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. "The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we spend only one thousand euro per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average spend more than 3000 euro per desktop per year ... Open Source desktops are far cheaper to maintain than proprietary desktop configurations," says Rolf Schuster, a diplomat at the German Embassy in Madrid and the former head of IT at the Foreign Ministry ... "The embassies in Japan and Korea have completely switched over, the embassy in Madrid has been exclusively using GNU/Linux since October last year", Schuster added, calling the migration a success.' The Guardian has additional coverage of the move."
Thats bloody beautiful (Score:1, Insightful)
I certainly hope more countries follow this lead.
Re:Thats bloody beautiful (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we get a special tag for this. I mean it's getting to where this type of headline is more abundant than anything needing the suddenoutbreakofcommonsense tag. Perhaps that is the tag that needs to be applied? Well, maybe not. We could at least start tagging them with OSSWindowsSmackDownScore or something, right?
I don't know who is keeping score between Windows and F/OSS anymore, but it seems like newsworthy events when entire government branches, or governments, or countries smack down Windows in favor of F/OSS. Funny, I've not heard any stories that amount to "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" after any of these announcements. Does anyone know of such a story where switching caused great harm or fiscal problems?
Re:Thats bloody beautiful (Score:5, Informative)
Well, no one suffered great harm but some of the early switchers might have. IBM for example failed in being able to switch, they couldn't get their divisions coordinated well enough. Sun (which switched to Sun desktop) had problems with customers and file formats as well as secondary software (much to their embarrassment).
The most successful switchers were companies like PitBoys and Burlington Coat Factory that were SCO / Solaris shops and weren't on Windows to bgin with. Windows lock-in seems to work.
What is unique about Munich is that they have remained focused year after year on this goal. They missed their early deadlines but they kept funding the project and kept moving forward. They were determined to make it happen, they had problems and (and possibly still have) but they addressed them. So this isn't a "just another example" test case but rather the best example we have of a very large organization with a huge range of needs and without a high level of technical expertise in their staff that was determined to make the switch.
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So what you're saying s that it cost much, much more than advertised to do?
Who cares? So long as the long-term costs are reduced by the switch to Linux -- which they seem to be, at E1000 rather than E3000 per desktop -- that's worthwhile.
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Re:Thats bloody beautiful (Score:4, Insightful)
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: They paid much more than they expected and got more than they originally planned. Being on the bleeding edge is expensive. On the plus side Munich's development is now plugged in to the broader community so they are able to take advantage of open source in the "if you don't like it change it" sort of way. Moreover, Munich has become a test case for lots of open source software so many other cities will end up having to do "Munich's way".
Comment: Once Munich finishes the big issue will be the rest of Germany switching over. That should take much less time and cost less per head.
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"If you don't like it change it" is the crap that most linux fans don't get - Very few people want to write code - programming is a waste of time for most users. If I don't like it, and I see that a company is selling software that does what I need (albeit closed source), I'll go ahead and save time by buying it, rather that learn how to change the code someone else has written. I'm an electrical engineer by training, and I find programming quite a waste of my time - I always end up hiring someone else to r
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It isn't that clear cut usually. For large organizations it is more like:
free / cheap alternatives do 25% of what I want
expensive alternative does 40% of what I want
expensive alternative with high staff maintenance and configuration costs does 60% of what I want
"do it yourself" solutions cost even more and do 85% of what I want.
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Maybe programming is indeed a waste of time for most users - but TFA and TFC (the fine comments) are not dealing with programming language illiterate users, but with a government paying programmers to get things done the way the government likes.
So, while it is true that it makes no sense to tell Joe the average plumber "if you don't like it, fix it
Rather outdated (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Rather outdated (Score:5, Funny)
They're still waiting on those Gentoo desktops to compile. They'll be ready for deployment "any day now!"
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To be fair there is talk about how it has reduced maintenance costs, I suspect you don't get enough data to say that for sure until years later.
OSS is not cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Just now Microsoft made a statement to the press...
"OSS is not cheaper to maintain for the following reasons"
1. Employees will waste that extra time they get not waiting for reboots instead of using it for texting & other 'social' activities.
2. We pay people to stick their fingers in their ears and say "La La LA MS is cheaper La La Laaaaa".
3. Any money left will encourage your employees to steal it.
4. Steve Balmer needs it to develop sweat-proof chairs.
5. Windows 7 wont have any of the existing lock-in as previous versions of Windows. It'll all be new kinds of lock-in.
6. ???
7. Profit (for us not you)
Some more interesting tidbits from the article (Score:5, Informative)
They also started the switch a long time ago, according to article, the infrastructure switch started in 2001 and the decision for the destop migration was done in 2004, so I think they have some solid experience with handling Open Source now, which I think is good.
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if only 4k of 11k are migrated, doesn't that mean they will announce even greater cost savings once the migration is complete?
The big question is - which desktop do they use? Suse, Ubuntu or Fedora? Gnome or KDE?
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Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, at least Germany had the balls to stand up to Microsoft and actually go with the GNU/Linux solutions vs most other countries and corporations that just do this to get a discount from Microsoft. Here's a good quote from the article:
The conversation between Ude and Ballmer was confidential, but anyone who knows the Microsoft CEO can guess how it went. Let us say negotiation is not his forte. Ballmer is no more designed for the art of persuasion than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on wheels.
Common sense to become common again (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting. Does that mean that there are still reasonable people in the world? Even in politics?
GNU/Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
They know what GNU is, or at least use it by name. That's really the biggest story here.
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They know what GNU is, or at least use it by name. That's really the biggest story here.
You mean everyone doesn't use Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS? GNU? Whoever made this "Nuu" operating system probably copied Ubuntu.
</newbie ubuntu user stereotype>
Why this will never happen in other countries (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Guardian article:
(emphasis mine)
And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we won't be seeing this in many countries outside Germany. They have a politician who knows what he's talking about, and doesn't pander to the whims of industrial lobbyists.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
> They have a politician who knows what he's
> talking about, and doesn't pander to the whims
> of industrial lobbyists.
Ehm, let's just say some are less clueless. It might seem from 'the outside' that Germany politicians are not that driven by lobbyists but in fact they are. It's just that the German government cares very little about an American Cooperation.
In fact German politics are heavily influenced by German cooperations, for example in the energy or pharmaceutic politics.
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Well Otto Schily is not the Interior Minister anymore, since 3 years actully.
And now he is on the board of a biometric security company. As the Minister he pushed for biometric details in passports. That should cover the lobbying part.
The open source thing is more liky to be a case of what we call in German: A blind chicken sometimes finds a grain, too.
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In fact Schily is not what I consider to be a good politician. He has won the Big Brother Award two times.
I prefer to explain his commitment to free software this way: If you work hard to become Big Brother, you get better at recognizing when others do the same to you...
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The point with this migration, is that it proves what people have been saying...
Short term migration costs can be higher, but long term costs are a lot lower, and that it works on a large scale. Based on this, more migrations will happen, if not in government then in the business sectors. In the current economic climate, saving money and reducing dependencies on companies that may not be there in a few years makes a lot of sense.
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Why is this such a simple concept for you to understand. Most people care more about other things, for example War. Actually having their children die. Or healthcare. Or Schools. Or the police. MOST PEOPLE CARE about that stuff, not what OS the government runs on. How stupid are you that you cannot understand this. So rather than blaming this shit on politicians and lobbyists, why don't you wake the fuck up to the real world.
And you wonder why OSS isn't more popular . . . (Score:1, Informative)
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Well, that figures - if you've got 200 MCSE drones hanging about looking after your systems, it's going to take a bit of work to convince them to learn new skills that don't depend on clicking here, there and everywhere.
Still, it looks like they've got it all up and running now, and at least some of the original drones must have blossomed into real admins along the way.
Never underestimate foreign ministries (Score:5, Insightful)
The real story would be if they got the Interior Ministry to convert. In Europe, that (and the Agriculture Ministry) is usually where the deadbeats end up.
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NSA, it's the NSA that reads your emails
CIA will just write long reports about what you wrote....
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But even the Home Office is eclipsed in doltishness by MAFF (or whatever it's called nowadays) - the people that brought you mounds of cremated cows and sheep because nobody had the balls to vaccinate against foot and mouth.
I'll be driving past the source of the last outbreak (the Pirbright labs) later this morning - uttering silent curses at the incompetents who failed basic biosecurity as I do so.
Only Desktops? (Score:1)
Re:Only Desktops? (Score:5, Funny)
2008 (Score:4, Funny)
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Das Jahr des Linux Desktop-Computer.
Shouldn't that be "das Jahr des Linuxdesktopkomputor"
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Shouldn't that be "das Jahr des Linuxdesktopkomputor"
You tell me - my username isn't CrazyGermanGuy!
"Computer" in German is "Rechner" (Score:2)
It'd be "rechner", not "komputor". The word "desktop" in the non-computer sense translates to "Schreibtisch" (lit. "writing table", same as in danish).
I don't know which words Germans use to distinguish between desktop/laptop/workstation systems and servers/clusters/phones/*, though.
"Jahr des Linux an die Schreibtisch Rechner" =~ Year of Linux on the desktop computer. Not sure.
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I don't know which words Germans use to distinguish between desktop/laptop/workstation systems and servers/clusters/phones/*, though.
Desktop/Laptop/Workstation
Server/Cluster.
That answer your question?
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Das Jahr des Linux Desktop-Computer.
Shouldn't that be "das Jahr des Linuxdesktopkomputor"
Or maybe, "2008, der Linuxdesktoprechnerjahr"
Has this anything to do with the Green Party? (Score:4, Interesting)
The german Green Party has a tradition of rather sane maxims regarding IT. In late 1998 Germany elected a Social Democrat / Green Party coalition and 2001 seems like a reasonable date for the implementation of descisions made shortly after 1998.
This, of course, is pure conjecture, i'd be grateful if anyone from Germany had any background information on the reasons for the switch.
Digg this story! (Score:1)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Sir,
The chronometer in your time machine appears to be off by a few decades.
You apparently landed in the early 21st century, instead of the mid 20th.
I'm afraid a time machine repair shop won't be available for another 200 years. But hey, we have cable TV!
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"If it's good enough for Nazis, it's good enough for me. Hey everyone: let's all be like Nazis! Make Hitler proud!"
Be careful what you ask for. They gassed retards instead of modding them down.
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Mussolini made them run on thyme...
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Yeah. Did you read The Guardian article (actually The Observer)? It's dated June 22nd. Of 2003. Two Thousand And THREE.
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Yeah. Did you read The Guardian article (actually The Observer)? It's dated June 22nd. Of 2003. Two Thousand And THREE.
Holy Shit, Bazman!
Re:so.. (Score:5, Informative)
As for logins, there are a variety of mechanisms. You can go with old school NIS, or even just use Samba, which can be especially useful during migration when you will probably have a heterogeneous environment (assuming the migration is away from Windows). Also, there is autofs, which can automatically mount a network mapped home directory when a user logs in...
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> List price for Satellite server is $13,500 (USD) annually.
That system sounded too nice to be true at first.
Though I asked for OSS alternatives, let me rephrase, are there any FREE OSS alternatives for this task?
Is the only alternative to write shell script to ssh into every machine and do the install?
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All Linuxes come with package upgrade services that run. You simply point them at a local repository and the machines will self update on whatever frequency you want as part of your standard image.
Re:so.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Self-updating is not problem, apt-cron etc will handle that.
The problem is, I have new software which I need to deploy to 4000 machines overnight.
Do I really have to reimage 4000 machines to achieve that goal?
What about user files on those desktop machines? Reimaging would wipe them clear. (ok, home directory on separate partition/on network would fix this)
Having something automatically installed/uninstalled on machines centrally deployed is the problem here.
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Re:so.. (Score:5, Informative)
At least the debian / ubuntu system easily support this, using meta packages.
you have an empty package, leys say blah-desktop-graphics that all employees working with graphics have installed. You want to install graphics program Foobar. You add Foobar to your local repository, and release a new version of the metapackage that depends on Foobar. So package manages sees "oh, new version of blah-desktop-graphics. Great, lets grab that. Hm, for that I need Foobar too, so lets grab that one, and install it."
Exactly how apt deals with new dependencies under updates can be configured, from ignore, to ask, to install automatically. Since you're deploying a default image, and have already pointed that image to your internal update server, it would just be a small additional step to set that option correctly. As a bonus you have 100% control over what gets pushed to your machines.
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As a bonus you have 100% control over what gets pushed to your machines.
I am not a debian packager...can you use meta-packages to force removal of an existing installed package? Lets say you update blah-desktop-graphics to install GIMP and then later you want to have it removed and install something different, can you push out a removal of GIMP?
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"I am not a debian packager...can you use meta-packages to force removal of an existing installed package? Lets say you update"
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: have a look at the "conflicts" tag.
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You make whatever you have to deploy a package and have the machines update with your new package. Updating is install/uninstall you just change dependencies on some virtual package
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Well, stick with the custom repository, add your apps to it, and make sure that your update scripts also support retrieving a list of mandatory packages that need to be installed, so that anything new gets installed at the same time as any updates.
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Self-updating is not problem, apt-cron etc will handle that.
The problem is, I have new software which I need to deploy to 4000 machines overnight. Do I really have to reimage 4000 machines to achieve that goal?
Re-imaging is not a solution--because like you said, it would wipe all the files on the machines and remove the customization, etc...
The same would happen with windows.
In a Microsoft environment, the easiest way (and cheapest way I've found) is to get an MSI package. Deploy it with group policy.
Use a similar packaging system in debian-like distros. Create a deb. Add it to the software repository for users to download--or use something like 'cssh' to issue the command 'apt-get install mypackage' on
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I'd have them netboot over PXE and then there's just the morning spike to deal with. Department boot servers would deal with that.
The three terminals in my office boot PXE & I know that booting 64k blue gene nodes into Plan9 is possible. This lies somewhere between the two.
Re:so.. (Score:4, Insightful)
puppet http://reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/ [reductivelabs.com]
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This sounds like what I was after, Thanks for the link.
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at least for some distros (primarily redhat heritage, also some suse capabilities) there's http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/mrepo/ [wieers.com]
there's also http://www.redhat.com/spacewalk/ [redhat.com], the recently opensourced satellite spinoff - but it still requires oracle as a backend, so screw that ;)
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Is the only alternative to write shell script to ssh into every machine and do the install?
Back in the day, I had a text file with the names of all of our machines. for name in `cat machinlist.txt`; do ssh $name yum install -y software; done
You don't even need a script.
Don't bother pointing out all the problems with that, I know. But it does work (once you fix the syntax errors).
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Is the only alternative to write shell script to ssh into every machine and do the install?
What's the problem? Such a script can be written in five minutes.
Thus it was (Score:4, Interesting)
Jorge was explaining how to handle my new role ...
"So when the updates come in, Karl looks at them and if they look sticky he applies them to the VM and runs the unit tests. As we update applications from our upstream providers, we test them against the same VMs. Our in-house developers write to the same VMs, and when they implement new features or use new libraries, they have to include unit tests to test the interfaces to validate that they work in the required ways. Each night the system builder builds a new VM from the latest updates. All you need to do is check the unit tests reports and make sure Karl knows right away if something goes wrong - just put the error report in the trouble ticket. The trouble ticket system will also notify the advocate teams for the specific package that fails. Usually it doesn't and we push the patch a few minutes after it comes in."
I wanted be mindful of security: "But Jorge" I said, "what if a horrid exploit happens overnight?"
"We're partnered with five other trusted NOCs that give us 24 hour coverage. We share unit tests so that if a patch has to be included any hour of the day, it's morning somewhere. We don't even come in anymore.
We used to have to come in on weekends too, but this new system doesn't have exploits as often so it's been a couple years since that happened."
Thinking to show I was interested in the long term, I asked "What do you do when you get new hardware?"
"It's weird. Once upon a time, the virtual machines were there to simulate the physical machines. Now it works out that the new hardware is just physical hardware to implement the virtual machine. We get samples, build the image from the VM and run the unit tests on them. If we can't make our software pass the tests, or we can't get our required upstream packages validated, we don't buy the hardware. If the vendor won't sell us hardware that works, we get a new vendor. If somebody wants to advocate some special hardware, they're responsible for maintaining the software for it, maintaining the fixes, and of course pushing them back upstream so that everybody can have them. The desktops sync to the user accounts on the server continuously so if they remote into their desktop from the road or from a thin client, they get the whole deal with all their preferences, email, files, desktop items and shortcuts intact.
Once a quarter we get together and compare the pots and pans of new hardware. That gets pretty lively. Wait 'til I show you my USB device collection. Did you know they made oscilloscopes?
Anyway, You wouldn't believe the system we had before. It was horrid. Applications didn't even come with the source code."
"What was it?"
"At the end, the very worst one was called Vista. They probably didn't even mention that one in school, it came and went so fast. When it was clear that this was as good as that software vendor was ever going to get, we had no choice but to change. I fought it at first but now I'm glad. The new system is, well, rational. I don't know how we survived before.
Now let me show you the cafeteria. We have our own Starbucks..."
Re:so.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a joke, right?
Where the fuck do you think Microsoft stole Kerberos and LDAP for their AD from?! We've been using the stuff AD is made of years before it was even a wet dream in Microsoft's diseased minds.
As to automated installs, every damn Linux distro has a package management system capable of being remotely scripted, and designed for mirroring via localized caches!
What a dork.
Re:so.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know microsoft ripped kerberos and ldap to ad and crippled them while doing so.
Since this has been done years on unix systems, care to link a howto / etc documentation on deploying such system?
No, I don't mean guides explaining how to install kerberos and ldap.
I haven't been able to find guide on deploying active directory-like system with free software which would offer group policy features. When I already have groups deployed in LDAP, why do I need to script installers instead just defining policy to install software to that group?
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When I already have groups deployed in LDAP, why do I need to script installers instead just defining policy to install software to that group?
Because of the Unix philosophy: do one thing and do it well. LDAP isn't a software installation system. Even AD's software installation pales in comparison to real software installation systems built for windows; AD can't even install an EXE file without scripting _and_ mandatory reboots (or encapsulating into an MSI).
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Getting the latest version of Samba is the easiest way, if all you want to do is replicate the functionality of AD. In the past I have replicated an NT4 domain using Samba and LDAP, back before they had AD functionality, it was remarkably easy and the Windows clients couldn't tell it wasn't an NT server.
I'm not exactly sure what you do with GPOs, so I don't even know if it would make sense in a Linux context. There are a plethora of ways to install software on your Linux workstations. Trying do apply the
Re:so.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is because of fundamental differences in the entire philosophy of Linux/FOSS vs. that of Microsoft. Microsoft aims to provide cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all "solutions" whereby some doofus MSCE can read "AD for Dummies" and then click his way through system administration. It works, to a degree, in homogeneous environments which do not deviate in any way from "Microsoft Approved" designs.
Linux on the other hand is built around small, specialized components out of which a competent admin is supposed to construct a solution tailored to a specific environment. And the glue which links all of these components, which can be combined in a very large number of ways, is scripting.
That is why one cannot be a competent Linux admin without being also competent with a number of scripting languages. That is the price, but it is also the advantage as more demanding the deployment parameters grow, the more such approach becomes superior over the one-size-fits-all method.
So in effect you are asking for Linux to abandon all of its advantages and become "like Windows" just because you are too lazy to learn how to deploy it properly. And by this I do not mean reading some idiotic 20-step "how to" which cannot cover even a fraction of the possible configurations. By "learning" I mean understanding all the fundamentals of the system operation, learning all the involved scripting languages and being able to modify all the essential system scripts with thorough understanding of all the involved components.
And that is why such "how tos" are of a very limited use. There are "shortcuts", some of which were already pointed out to you - such as Samba, but they are intended for simplified scenarios whereby the scope of possible configurations is very narrow.
Once any serious sized Linux deployment is considered, a huge number of possible scenarios exists, beginning with basic considerations such as if to run the client systems via network mounted root file systems (in which case no home directory "roaming" exists) or if to deploy terminal servers or X-terminals etc and so on, all of which have impact on how users are authenticated and how their resources are allocated on the network, not to mention that LDAP and Kerberos are amongst many other ways of maintaining centralized user information. No "how to" guide is going to cover all of these complexities.
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So what you're saying is that LInux isn't viable for small/medium sized businesses.
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Only if small and medium businesses are restricted to hiring learning-impaired boneheads for all of their IT needs. A competent Linux admin can keep a far larger number of small businesses operational because as a reward for all the effort he spent learning how to do it he gets to automate and make reliable a far larger number of diverse systems then a Windows admin can, not to mention that his task is in the long run far le
Re:so.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. Absolutely true.
One of the main difference between the Windows admins at work, and me, the Linux/Unix admin, is that when any big changes need to be done in off-hours, is that the Windows admins run around at work pointing and clicking and re-checking settings at night or on the weekend, while I just SSH into work and fire of the script I wrote and tested during work hours.
If the script takes longer sometimes because it has to change a lot of machines or a lot of data, I just keep an eye on it while watching TV or do games, or have some friends over.
In *nix, once you have figured out how to do something, you basically know everything you need to know to script and automate it.
In Windows, it is a huge additional step to figure that out and implement it, and it's not even possible all the time.
So on *nix you need to spend a lot more time learning stuff, but you spend a lot less time doing repetitive boring stuff.
For example, one Windows admin spend about six ours on a weekend at work to change the EmployeeID in AD to a new numbering scheme. Now I'm PRETTY shure that could have been scripted some way, even in Windows, but he rather did it by hand than try to figure out how to script it. Weird people. ;-P
What nonsense. (Score:2)
MS thrives in lock in, which by extension means lowly paid Systems Administrators.
We are putting ourselves in a competitive disadvantage by failing to understand that the high earning Linux SA is not seen sympathetically by HR people and managers trying to optimize depleting budgets.
We know a Linux/UNIX SA is more cost effective in the long run because the technology he is experienced in is more cost efficient, but the cost of entry to a position (high salaries combined with the perception that Linux is mor
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This is a non-sequitur. One highly paid Linux SA is still cheaper (and in most cases far more efficient) then 5 or 6 click-monkeys. And of course any company which measures everything strictly and exclusively by direct dollar cost is doomed to go tits up rather promptly anyway.
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linux nerds think software should be more complex so sysadmin salaries are higher, reason #128 nobody listens to them
The truth is that the complexity of Windows and Linux is really not the important issue; the important issue is what happens when you reach some point not covered by the existing system. When that happens on Windows, you have to contract Microsoft to fix Windows for you in most cases, because they don't give the code to just any asshole. With Linux, that is precisely the case... Asshole.
You are missing the point completely. (Score:2)
If you present the non extensible AD solution against the extensible one in Linux, but the appearance is that AD gets up and running faster and in a simpler way in comparison to Kerberos/LDAP complexity, the decision making people will move to AD, past that point is moot point if Linux would be most extensible, since it was dropped at the start. That is the point of vendor lock in, to sell you something inferior that you can't drop easily any more.
To give Linux a better chance in small and medium environmen
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While i do fully agree with you, "replacing windows" is a simplified scenario and the scope of configurations is very narrow because as you pointed out, windows configurations do not deviate from "microsoft approved" designs...
So what people really need, are simple ways to migrate from windows to linux and achieve equivalent functionality. Yes, this will lose many of the benefits of linux, but it's a start. Once linux deployment is far more widespread, more people will be motivated to learn it and companies
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Unfortunately there is no way to do it. That is by trying to migrate the "functionality" of Windows to Linux one essentially has to ... emulat
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This snipped caught my attention:
...construct a solution tailored to a specific environment...
The thing is, I'm a systems integrator, and as a part of my consulting job I have worked on small and large projects at something like 100 different companies and organisations of all sorts. Do you know what I discovered?
Companies all have the same needs when it comes to IT.
They all have the same need for home directories, application deployment, patching, security, backup, and the like. They all run the same kind of applications for the same reasons. It doesn't change as
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Bullshit. Every industry has its own unique requirements. Hospitality has its roaming staff, manufacturing has its CNC machinery, medical services have their wireless data entry and patient data access, etc and so on. And then each business has its own unique way of doing things, otherwise they cease to be competitive. You keep forgetting that the role of IT is to adapt to the business it serves! But instead, the Microsoft way is for business to adapt t
What is wrong with cookie cutter solutions? (Score:2)
The answer above is a bad cop-out.
It is frankly a poor excuse to invoke flexibility as the reason to abandon simplicity. Something that is flexible should by extension be configurable in a simple way that will fit many common cases.
A system administrator, even a competent one, is faced with an uphill struggle when faced with the diabolic combination of kerberos/LDAP.
The way this should work should be to get a basic install by means of a package install which works in simple, defined ways.Once this is done,
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Which is precisely the case with the standard Unix/Linux multi-system administration methods which usually involve simply sharing a master security database (usually by means of common, read-only "/etc" directory mounted over an encrypted tunnel) and centralized "/home" similarly mounted over the network. Such n
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I haven't been able to find guide on deploying active directory-like system with free software which would offer group policy features. When I already have groups deployed in LDAP, why do I need to script installers instead just defining policy to install software to that group
First, quit thinking like Microsoft, their methods are ass backwards and overly complex. Look at a script as a hyper intelligent policy where you are in total control and not bound by the options presented to you.
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I am working with Apple's integration of LDAP, OpenDirectory and since it's pure LDAP and Kerberos it integrates nicely. It allows for you to define groups that have access or not to certain programs, to set up desktop environments uniformly etc. It's also much cheaper (even if you include the hardware).
Both Novell and Red Hat have similar solutions and there are plenty of guidelines out there to have LDAP do whatever you want. I find myself that enforcing stuff through Group Policies are too difficult to m
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Handful of servers is easy to handle but how are logins and home directories handled in environment this scale?
Use LDAP to integrate RHEL clients (and other distros too) with OpenLDAP, MS Active Directory, Fedora Directory Server, or Sun Java System Directory Server. Any one of those accomplishes a central identification and authentication repository. LDAP-based directory servers can handle millions of entries in a distributed (i.e. global) environment.
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WSUS -> cfengine or something similar
The tinker toys are all in the box...
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or something similar
I can recommend Puppet [reductivelabs.com].
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On windows environment you use active directory and sus.
How do you centrally manage software installs and permissions on thousands of machines with oss? Handful of servers is easy to handle but how are logins and home directories handled in environment this scale?
If you're using Ubuntu, use landscape [canonical.com].
RedHat has a tool too--I'm not sure what it's called, I haven't RH or Centos in years.
There are lots of directory solutions too. AD is essentially LDAP with a few MS extensions. Most linux boxen now-a-days can hook into AD. On the flip-side, you can use plain 'ol LDAP if you have no Windows machines.
You can run apt-mirror on debian-like distros. You mirror all the updates locally on a machine and have all the others download from it.
There's even been talk r
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What i always found amusing about windows policies, is that they're implemented in userland and trivially easy to bypass...
As an example, the one that prevents you from using cmd.exe
Take a copy of cmd.exe and run it up in a debugger, you will notice it checks a registry key to see if it's allowed to run, and displays an error if it's not. Well, hexedit the binary and break the check (just rename the key so it wont find it) and run the modified cmd.exe on a machine with a group policy that doesn't allow it..
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cmd.exe is particularly stupid because it allows batch invocation, and practically noone on Windows forbids the creation of foo.bat.
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It's 2008, 7 years since they started the migration, I think they're sticking to it.
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Those are 5 words to remember.
It's never as easy as "dump Windows and install Foo".
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Yes, because governments never make bad decisions, then hide them with false data/reports.
So are you saying they didn't really start migrating in 2001 or that they aren't really still using F/OSS now? Or did you just want to say something and couldn't come up with anything sensible?
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No, that's not even close to what I'm saying. Let me say it another way since you seem to be having difficulty.
âoeIt's entirely possible the move to FOSS (in this instance) was a bad decision for one or more technical and/or financial reasons, but if you put out a glowing report then nobody knows otherwise. Problem solved.â
Oh, you're just being offtopic then. I was answering the OP who was wondering if they would stick to in, they have. Whether that is a good or bad idea is irrelevant to the point answered, which is whether they stuck with it or not. I tend to expect a logical flow of conversation, that's why I didn't understand you.