LTSP Setup for Photography Workstations

Steps taken to setup LTSP server for photography workstations with local CD burning and memory card reading.

General Resources

• LTSP Admin Guide
• LTSP Wiki

Done

• install Picasa 3.0 on server
• install picasa.desktop in /usr/local/share/applications so new users have Picasa automatically
• edit /etc/gnome/defaults.list to use Picasa for JPG files
• create script to make ISO and burn, and call it from Picasa’s filemanager hook script (autoburn)
• install genisoimage and wodim in chroot
• add users to fuse group
• fix automounting by tweaking PolicyKit (gnome-mount, hal)
• add passwd to root user in chroot and enable the account
• edit ltsp-localapps script to accept multiple arguments ($1 -> ${*})
• install autoburn script on server and client image
• setup authentication with Windows Active Directory using Likwise-Open (couldn’t get LDAP to work) (http://anothersysadmin.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/howto-active-directory-authentication-in-ubuntu-804/)
• allow domain users access to local groups (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=929940)
• mount photo drive from fstab giving access to domain^users
• configure samba (http://chrplunk.blogspot.com/2008/06/allow-windows-clients-in-active.html)  Be sure to read the comments at the bottom and use the open library not the V2/V4 library
• share the photo drive via usershare in samba
• allow usb devices on the server to be mounted with full privileges, so clients can access the devices.   Set umask to 0000 in gconf-editor as root: system/storage/default_options/vfat (and possibly ntfs), then right click to set the key default/mandatory
• the client won’t recognize AD uids and gids, so tweak udev to create the cdrom devices with 777 permissions (edit 40-permissions.rules and add MODE=”0777″ after each line with GROUP=”cdrom”).
• export the photo dir from the server and mount it via NFS on the client.  In chroot, apt-get install portmap nfs-client, then follow the FatClient instructions to mount the NFS share automatically on the client via a script run from lts.conf.
• autologin by adding LDM_AUTOLOGIN, LDM_USERNAME, and LDM_PASSWORD to lts.conf
• add Kiax softphone
  

To Do

• customize and lock down desktop
• configure USB printer
• remove ‘dummy’ option from autoburn script

Per-Client Setup

• e-mail
• picasa
• dual monitor
• desktop icons: picasa, makeday
• setup autologin user account for client via lts.conf

Notes

1. When CD burning on LTSP client, stock photos should be kept small enough that they don’t take forever to load over NFS for each burn.