Looking for advice: Supporting a lab for a nonprofit. /home on a LAN server

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So basically I’m now volunteering to maintain a computer lab of about 20 machines that are currently running Vista. I’m about to reinstall Vista because these machines haven’t been touched by any maintenance in the several years since a local college set them up - so they’re in pretty bad shape (actually not all that bad, considering). Now, because this nonprofit has access to techsoup, I’m going to recommend they look at getting Windows 10 licenses and upgrade these machines to 10.

Meanwhile, I’ve also gotten permission to dual-boot Linux. And because my favorite distro is Ubuntu MATE, I’m planning to install it.

But I’d like to figure out how to better manage these systems - I’m using MATE on my systems at home, so I’ve learned some simple tasks like running commands remotely and such to keep things up to date, but for example:

###How can I centralize user account and put /home on one of the computers?

I’d like to dedicate one of the computers as a LAN server, or at least with “command and control”. Ideally, I’d like to create user accounts stored on this computer, so that the kids can log onto any of the computers and have all their files and programs and such available.

I don’t think I want this to be a thin client situation; these aren’t the fastest computers; so I want everything running locally. But I’d like /home to be on the central computer.

###Any advice on central management is welcome.

Basically, I’m a user. I’ve never been a network engineer. I can program a bit in bash, and I’m a web host by trade. So I mean, I’m not a total n00b, but I’m not an expert - so I’d like links to tutorials, information, usergroups geared towards people trying to do what I’m doing. :slight_smile:

I’m open to any advice you all have. Except, of course, “don’t do this”, because I’m gonna make it happen. :slight_smile: The WORST case scenario is that I’m only able to dual-boot these and only have local user accounts… and maybe I can figure out how to write a little rsync-based utility to sync the contents of their /home or something like that. But surely there’s a better way. :slight_smile:

Thank you in advice for your time and consideration :slight_smile:

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I know at my school it basically works like this:

  • PXE Boot -> One unique configuration for all the machines.
  • LDAP Server for User Accounts management
  • NFS /home/users directories so data of users is accessible from each workstation
  • Special secure folder: redundant and remotely accessible for the important stuff

We don’t have dual booting though, machines are either Windows or Ubuntu.

I’m curious to see how a real pro would set this up and I’ll monitor this thread with interest.
Cheers

Edit: I forgot to mention something: you haven’t told us anything about what kind of networking hardware comes with the 20 machines, and it might be important for NFS, PXE etc.

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So far, I’ve been pointed here (from another thread elsewhere): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SingleSignOn

Which mentions LDAP. Sounds like a learning curve! I’m soliciting a couple of old laptops locally to see if I can play with it here at home before trying to roll it out at the lab. I want Ubuntu MATE to be well-received there and make a real difference in the uptake in my community. :slight_smile:

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Hi @ieh,

does this help at all?:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX

And this is quite good! :thumbsup:

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Thank you for the reply! Actually, those are completely different directions than what I’m looking for, but I appreciate the help. :slight_smile:

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