Re: [seul-edu] Introduction and question

[Jay Savage <daggerquill@planet-save.com>]

--- Cameron Miller <cdmiller@adams.edu> wrote:

<snip>

>I am not aware of an all in one Zenworks like solution addressing linux, 
>Windows, and Mac clients.  On UNIX and linux, it is more of a collection 
>of tools, each designed to do a small set of things very well.  These 
>tools are generally capable of being glued together to provide a 
>customized best fit solution to your site specific problems.
>
>Also, I have not looked really closely at Zenworks, just it's general 
>idea of pushing new client changes out to groups of machines.
>
>- cameron

Hello,

Just to follow up on what Cameron said, there are Linux tools to do just about every admin task, and they are easily combined with each other and automated through shell scripts.  In many ways this is easier, and almost certainly more efficient, than a Zenworks-type all-in-one solution.

One reason for the lack of an all-in-one administration tool is Linux's greater networking flexability.  There is a different network configuration for every Linux sysadmin (if not every Linux user) on the planet, so the best--and possibly only--approach is to find the tools that are appropriate to your situation.  Many schools find that their resources are best used serving Network Computers, and even a dual installation can be network bootable for Linux.  In that case, administration is easy: you chage the fileserver, and that's it.  another space saver for dual install machines is remote mounting everything except the users' /home directory.  Again, since the only files actually residing on the local machines are the users' personal files, updating software packages is easy.

And if you decide that workstations are a better solution for your situation, then tools like rdist, rsh, ssh, and others can be quickly scripted into a customized solution.  Even simple utilities like rlogin and cp can become powerful administration tools when dropped in a for/next loop.

Hope this helps a little,

--jay

_____________________________________________________________
Save rainforest! Redjellyfish Long Distance works just like any other long distance provider and is very competitively priced. In addition, you’ll save rainforest every time you make a long distance call! To learn more visit: http://www.redjellyfish.com/longdistance