Lubang in retrospect — 3/23/12

Successes at LIS:

• Lloyd and I successfully configured the laptop that Mitch had loaded with the XS-AU 0.7 back in July 2011.
• We were able to register XO’s on the school server.
• XO’s could share the internet connection by way of the Browse Activity.
• We installed a deep cycle lead acid battery and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) capable of providing school server and internet access for power outages lasting up to 30 hours.
• We installed software on the school server which permits administrative access to the server via virtual private network (openvpn) from any location on the internet. In this we were only partially successful:
  During configuration of the server, we needed to enable a network function called masquerade. This is done by specifying an entry in the firewall. When we installed the firewall, used by Ferdie in other deployments, we gained internet access for the XO’s, but in the process disabled the vpn access which had been working previously.  I will try to send an upgraded firewall file to Lloyd, which he can install at LIS, so that we have a fully functioning external access.
• We installed Kahn Academy video files (ogv format) on the school server, and verified that they could be accessed from the XO’s.
• I created a web page, (available on XO’s at the url: http://schoolserver/ka/kahnindex.html), which facilitates access to the Kahn materials.

Failures:

• The australia version of XS server was specifically crafted to work in an already existing network. Domain Name services, Dynamic host configuration protocol (dhcp), were removed or disabled from the distribution. The technical support advisers failed to recognize the impact that using this distribution would have on ease of support and configuration.
• Mitch and I both failed to notice that Lloyd was specifying a new server with a 64 bit processor. This oversight may or may not be recoverable.
• The remote access was installed, and the automatic hourly restart of the vpn channel was created. But the remote access objective was not achieved (see above).