Ubuntu 8.10 - Ball dropped

[Collins Richey]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:04 AM, Lonni J Friedman <netllama at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> How is "ldap functionality not working" in RHEL5?  I'd love to know so
> that I can make sure to break it on all of my RHEL5 systems which rely
> exclusively on LDAP for their authentication.
>

Didn't track the bugs - no time for this. The 5.0 and 5.1 versions
worked ok with ldap, but not 5.2. Something was broken in nss_ldap at
5.2, and a fix was released subsequently. On a freshly installed 5.2
system, the behavior varied. Sometimes you could login from an
alternate console but not from a gui screen, and sometimes you
couldn't login period. In  no case could you login as root with ldap
enabled. Granted, our ldap servers are somewhat back level, but the
nss_ldap fix made it possible to use the system. We need a lot of
development packages, and it's tricky to get everything you need from
the Client/Workstation split on 5.X. RedHat's answer is to license
each workstation, but we've never done that, and we were able to
kickstart what we needed on RHEL4 without problems. We do license our
servers, but they require a lot less customization and almost none of
the development packages.

>> Just goes to prove, there is no perfect distro, and just when you have
>> a fine-tuned, repeatable process, the rules of the game change, and
>> it's startover time.
>
> That defines Ubuntu perfectly.  I've been using the same RHEL5
> kickstart file since the 5.0 release and have never had a single
> problem.

You're lucky, or your ldap version just happens to work with 5.2. We
weren't lucky.

The problems come when you have to retrofit procedures that have been
working for years on RHEL3 and RHEL4 desktops and sidestep the ldap
bug.

>
>>
>> Thank goodness I'm well out of the reinstall game on my home system.
>
> Until you find yet another religion.
> *cough*GENTOO*cough*UBUNTU*cough*SIDUX*cough
>

Well, it probably won't be the *cough*REDHAT religion. All of the
distros I've tried have been enjoyable (you left out *cough*CENTOS and
a few others) if somewhat painful at times, and I've learned a lot.
The most profitable learning experience was using Ubuntu to learn the
basics of the Debian approach and thus to move on to a real Debian
system.

I do agree with you on one point, Lonni: it's a shame that Debian does
not have a simple and effective kickstart utility. Since I don't need
to kickstart my home system, it's not a major problem for me.

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.