k12admin update

[Tonnesen Steve <tonnesen@cmsd.bc.ca>]

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K12Admin is progressing well.  I'm pretty close to getting all of the
components that I use in my district into the packaged version.  The list
of features I want to add is long and growing, but what's there is quite
functional now.  The package is considerably more robust than the setup
I'm using in my district and I'm eagerly awaiting the summer when I can
switch our servers over to this new setup.

I submitted a proposal to write an article on K12Admin to Linux Journal
yesterday.  I've begun working on documentation for K12Admin (current
version is available at http://k12admin.cmsd.bc.ca/ in html, postscript,
or pdf), and expanding the introduction into a Linux Journal article
seemed like a good idea. 

The system, as it stands now, is capable of updating passwd/group,
shadow/gshadow, smbpasswd, and squid and apache authentication files on
the client machines.  Home directories are created automatically, and
cleaned up automatically for deleted accounts (old home directories can be
left alone, moved to a temporary holding area, or deleted outright).  A
security audit is run which logs where and when accounts are being used.
Squid proxy logs are analyzed for potential inappropriate use.

For a list of planned improvements, you can read the TODO list at the
bottom of the changelog:

	http://k12admin.cmsd.bc.ca/download/changelog.txt


The interest in the project seems to be a bit on the low side.  Maybe that
is just because of my big "ALPHA" warnings on the web page.  Maybe I
should tone that down a bit now, as I'm considerably more confident in the
packages than I was when I started.  I could probably bump the version
number above 0.1, too.  I've had one person in Washington State install
the system on test machines.  I've had no other reports of any kind.  I'm
hoping a LJ article will help drum up more interest.  I've also submitted
K12Admin to freshmeat.net today.

As well, I have submitted a request to become a Debian maintainer so that
the package can be included directly in the Debian distribution.  I have
no idea what would be involved in getting it included in a RedHat
distribution.  I assume it would get relegated to the RedHat contrib
archives?  I really have no idea how RedHat organizes their packages at
all.

I've also begun thinking about creating or merging K12Admin data with
EDUML files, but I need more information about how EDUML files are used by
other applications.  Is there an authoritative source for a district's
EDUML data that all applications consult?  Is there some method of
restricting access to potentially sensitive material in the EDUML file? 
Or would a teacher in a specific school get a subset of the full EDUML
file with only the students in her classes in it?  You can see I'm a
little unclear on how this file is used.  :)

Steve Tonnesen.


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