School server

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.

When we deploy one laptop per child, we must also provide additional infrastructure extending the capabilities of the laptops. While the laptops are largely self-sufficient, a mesh portal providing connectivity and shared resources greatly extends their utility.

These persistent services required by OLPC laptops could conceivably be implemented in a fully distributed manner. They are , however, currently provided more economically by a centralized local resource, the school server. The functions provided by this server are open to debate, but at a minimum they include internet communication, a centralized presence service and storage resources to the school's wireless mesh.

Roadmap

The school server is in heavy development at the moment (March/April 2008) - following

• XS Roadmap (see also XS Changelog)
• XS Core and Contrib
• XS DevKit

Technical notes

• XS Directory Layout for packagers

Meetings

• Tuesday March 25th 11 AM US EST - Agenda - Minutes - IRC Log

Design Documents

The high-level design of the School server is described here - note that some may be slightly outdated:

• Scenario taxonomy School Server and XO laptop scenario taxonomy
• The Server Specification introduces the School Server and its functions
• School Service Names

Blueprints

• Datastore Simple Backup and Restore
• OTP Root Passwords
• Remote management

XS Documentation

• XS Server Software describes the software system being built for release, and has instructions for downloading and installing the software
• Server Services described the services supported by the School Server
• The XS Server Specification describes the School Server hardware platform in much more detail.
• XS Installing Software has instructions for installing the latest School Server images
• XS Configuration Management has aids to configuring the software for your school
• XS Building Software
• XS Software Repositories
• School Identity Manager
• XS LiveCD
• XS Software Testing
• XS Backup and Disaster Recovery

Slightly Outdated

• Trial1 Server Software describes the proposed first revision of the server software
• Short Term Server Questions is a discussion of issues surrounding the immediate deployment of school servers
• Server Discussion describes services and enhancements possibly supported by the School Server
• XS Server P2P Cache

See also

• IRC - #schoolserver on irc.oftc.net
• Using SSH Keys
• Active Antenna
• Ejabberd Configuration
• School server network debugging is helpful. Troubleshooting School Servers is so incomplete as to be useless.
• How to debug networking in a crowded environment
• Collaboration Network Testbed
• School server/School district networks
• Bitfrost Security and Identity model
• Thin client
• http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/