Central Ubuntu Mangement

[thembimoyo]

I have a 340 Ubuntu 6.10 machines on a network I need ideas on how to centrally manage them start shooting...

[NIT006.5]

First off Thembi, I'm really impressed. I had no idea anybody in Zim was running Ubuntu on that sort of scale. Most people I've spoken to are still trying it out themselves, or for one or two users, so it's really awesome (I think) that you're already at that stage!

In our case, we're going for a full-on Ubuntu migration for all users, but with less machines at each branch. e.g. I've got about 35 users here and another 10 or so at a smaller branch - but taking into account all the other branches around the country, we'd probably be looking at around 150 users who will be running Ubuntu once our migration is complete. So I'm sure we'd also be very interested in the central management idea.

What sort of central management are you talking about? What kind of tasks would you like to be able to do "centrally"?

[thembimoyo]

I am thinking of things like Group Policies and the sort. I once read that a good setup of Samba and LDAP can do the trick. I now need to hear it from someone who has used/done it...

[NIT006.5]

I haven't actually got around to attempting this myself yet although it is something I would like to look at when I've got the time. I do know someone who I think has done something along those lines with a fedora server - will see what I can find out.

[NIT006.5]

You might want to take a look here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=533576&highlight=central+authentication

As is mentioned in that thread, central authentication shouldn't be too difficult and I know someone who has done this with samba for windows clients, but I think we might have problems with group policies at this point. Have you got any form of central authentication in place, or is that included in what you want to do?

[NIT006.5]

Hi Thembi,

Think you might want to take a look at this. Something Justin came across which looks VERY promising. http://www.canonical.com/projects/landscape

Think that might be what you're looking for.