[ubuntu-uk] What should be done for 12.04

[Bruno Girin]

On 26/09/11 14:50, Alan Bell wrote:
> On 26/09/11 14:46, Matthew Daubney wrote:
>>
>> Full LDAP integration (not just auth), complete with some kind of
>> "workgroup manager"-esque app to control permissions/access on groups
>> of machines and allow things like remote desktop as policy. Seems to
>> be one of the major things that would stop SME take up of Ubuntu.
>> (i.e. I see it on practically every mac/windows network when I go on
>> site visits to SME type companies)
>>
>> -Matt Daubney
>>
> ooh yes I would like that too. In fact what I would really like is you 
> start up Ubuntu desktop and the first thing it says is "where is my 
> Ubuntu server?" and then it all just works, pulling accounts from the 
> server, setting up email, proxy, policies, software packages etc. At 
> the moment Ubuntu server and Ubuntu desktop are not very tightly related.
>
> Alan.
>
Funnily enough I've been thinking about how I would configure that 
manually for a home office server. I haven't done anything yet but my 
thoughts in terms of requirements were:
  * Centralised login (LDAP + Kerberos?) so that you can login to your 
account from any machine;
  * Home folder synchronisation so that a copy of each user's home 
folder is always kept on the server (where it's easier to back-up) with 
possibility to optionally exclude some sub-folders on a per-machine, 
per-machine-group, per-user or per-user-group basis (e.g. don't sync the 
whole photo collection on the EeePC or exclude the project folders for 
the developer group as it's already under source control);
  * Support for proper shared folders (whether it's WebDAV, Samba or 
anything else) that can be set up for everybody or a specific user group;
  * Everything that Alan said above with possibility to have settings 
specific per machine, machine group, user or user group;
  * Caching on the individual desktop so that it's completely 
transparent for laptop users.

Having said this, it feels a lot bigger than anything that can be done 
in a single release. It wouldn't harm to get started though.

Cheers,

Bruno