🚀 go-pugleaf

This is a little long. I apologize, but ask you to read all of it.

As many of you know, I've been working with CSops to simplify our 
computing environment
in an effort to provide better services at the current price structure 
and to provide better
overall services for faculty & students.

Part of this involves moving to a single "authentication domain" -- this 
means a single password
for authentication for UNIX, Windows & web applications.

To this end, I've set up a "secure ldap server" running on the machine 
'cs-ldap.cs.colorado.edu'.
I will be working with CSops over the next few weeks to help them 
determine if this will help
reduce their workload and to determine how they can maintain it. The 
passwords in 'cs-ldap.cs.colorado.edu'
were populated with the password information from 'anchor' two days ago.

In the short term, it will help simplify some services and allow new new 
services.

One example of this is the "portal" I've deployed at 
"http://home.cs.colorado.edu".
This "portal" provides services to read your email, to login to the 
department using 'ssh',
check printer status and a "FAQ" mechanism using a Wiki. You can also 
log into the
system "home.cs.colorado.edu" using SSH with your password from 
"cs-ldap.cs.colorado.edu".

Until CSops opens the appropriate ports in the firewall, you can't get 
to this from
outside the department, but I expect the ports to be openned today.

All of these service use the LDAP passwords for authentication - i.e. to 
login using the java SSH
client, you need to use your "anchor" password.

The "wiki" is a mechanism to provide a user-contributed FAQ mechanism. 
Anyone in the department
can update the information in the "wiki" by hitting the "edit" button. 
You will be asked to authenticate
with your username & LDAP password. My students and I have provided some 
starting points for
information. If you don't like it, change it. If you want specific 
questions answered, I would suggest
adding the questions to the Wiki. It's pretty simple.

I have also changed the "Room Reservation System" to use the LDAP 
passwords rather than the Windows
NT passwords previously used. If you find yourself unable to reserve a 
room, please let CSops know.

It is also possible to use the LDAP server to authenticate specific web 
pages, provided your webserver
is suitably configured. This means you can have a web page be 
password-protected and grant access
to that page for specific users or groups (i.e. you could have a page 
specifically for people in group "faculty").
Specific details of how to do this will appear in the FAQ/Wiki. If 
people plan on using this ability, I would like
to be informed of it.

I will work with Karl to make the "department internal web pages" 
(which, despite the name, are only available
as UNIX files) available to faculty using this mechanism.

Sometime in Janurary, CSops will determine if they can maintain this 
LDAP server. At that time, some entity will
need to provide equipment to continue the setup I've provided -- I'm 
loaning one of my computers for this
effort until that time. At that time, we will start decommisioning some 
older computers and migrating those users to
a new environment.

As a side note, you should feel free to login to the machine 
'home.cs.colorado.edu' -- it has two 2.4Ghz Pentium IV
CPU's and 2GB of RAM, and is probably the fastest publically available 
machine in the department. It is running
"Mandrake Linux 9.0", which should look like most other Linux/UNIX 
implementations you may have used. I believe
that the CSops-provided /tools infrastructure is available, but I don't 
use that & don't reallly know.