preseed/kickstart, network authentication

This past weekend I was playing with Ubuntu's options for an
automated
network install (preseed and kickstart).  While the
installation went
very smoothly, I ran into a problem afterwards.  In a
nutshell, the
problem is the lack of support for automatically enabling
network
authentication such as kerberos and LDAP.

However, this problem is really not specific to automated
network
installs; it is also a problem for manual installs: setting
up the
client side of distributed authentication systems is a big
pain in the
butt.  This is compounded by the fact that support in
packages for
enabling and configuring PAM (and nsswitch) is pretty much
non-existent.
 Even hand-editing the pam configuration tends to produce a
configuration that is rather brittle.

Is anybody out there working on this problem?  If so, is
there anything
I can do to help?  How do other distributions handle this?
(redhat/fedora and OpenSUSE being the best in this respect
as far as I
am aware)

-Alex Mauer "hawke"


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There has been discussion about this situation for a couple
of years now,
but as far as I'm aware, it isn't yet the target of active
development.  You
can find other interested folks and some written material
at
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/network-authenticati
on

On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 12:13:58PM -0600, Alex Mauer wrote:
> This past weekend I was playing with Ubuntu's options
for an automated
> network install (preseed and kickstart).  While the
installation went
> very smoothly, I ran into a problem afterwards.  In a
nutshell, the
> problem is the lack of support for automatically
enabling network
> authentication such as kerberos and LDAP.
> 
> However, this problem is really not specific to
automated network
> installs; it is also a problem for manual installs:
setting up the
> client side of distributed authentication systems is a
big pain in the
> butt.  This is compounded by the fact that support in
packages for
> enabling and configuring PAM (and nsswitch) is pretty
much non-existent.
>  Even hand-editing the pam configuration tends to
produce a
> configuration that is rather brittle.
> 
> Is anybody out there working on this problem?  If so,
is there anything
> I can do to help?  How do other distributions handle
this?
> (redhat/fedora and OpenSUSE being the best in this
respect as far as I
> am aware)
> 
> -Alex Mauer "hawke"
> 
> 
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> sounder mailing list
> sounderlists.ubuntu.com
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 - mdz

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Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> There has been discussion about this situation for a
couple of years now,
> but as far as I'm aware, it isn't yet the target of
active development.  You
> can find other interested folks and some written
material at
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/network-authenticati
on

Yep, I read that (or rather
https:/
/wiki.ubuntu.com/NetworkAuthentication ); it seems to be
a good
description of what needs to be done.  However, the
Feisty-specific part
seems to be based around "authtool" -- is this a
new app written for
Ubuntu?  It doesn't seem to have made much progress since it
was started
(at least, there's no release that I can see; or am I
missing
something?)  Is there some reason that a new tool is being
written from
scratch rather than porting RH's authconfig to Ubuntu?

-Alex Mauer "hawke"


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On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 06:30:13PM -0600, Alex Mauer wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > There has been discussion about this situation for
a couple of years now,
> > but as far as I'm aware, it isn't yet the target
of active development.  You
> > can find other interested folks and some written
material at
> > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/network-authenticati
on
> 
> Yep, I read that (or rather
> https:/
/wiki.ubuntu.com/NetworkAuthentication ); it seems to be
a good
> description of what needs to be done.  However, the
Feisty-specific part
> seems to be based around "authtool" -- is
this a new app written for
> Ubuntu?  It doesn't seem to have made much progress
since it was started
> (at least, there's no release that I can see; or am I
missing
> something?)  Is there some reason that a new tool is
being written from
> scratch rather than porting RH's authconfig to Ubuntu?

I don't have answers to your specific questions about the
approach; you
should contact the people who are working on that project
(they are listed
in Launchpad).

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* Alex Mauer 

| However, the Feisty-specific part seems to be based
around
| "authtool" -- is this a new app written for
Ubuntu?  It doesn't seem
| to have made much progress since it was started (at least,
there's
| no release that I can see; or am I missing something?)

It's still in source NEW, so no, it's not available to the
general
public until an archive admin gets around to reviewing the
source.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen                                             
          ,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends
are      : :' :
                                                            
         `. `' 
                                                            
           `-  

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