Spare units and printer assignment by host name

[pyperdown]

We're currently assigning printers by hostname using the update.sh script.  We're looking at how to have hot spares ready, which is not a big issue until it comes to printing.  Has anyone dealt with this yet?  We're trying to eliminate the need for a visit from a tech, and also eliminate the need to train teachers on the hostname setting process.

Any thoughts?

[Juan Pucheu]

¿Hot spares? could you explain a little more?

[pyperdown]

Each school site is being issued a few "spare" netbooks for student use when one of the production units is out of production (repair, etc).

Our auto update script assigns printers based on hostname, which contains coding for the school site and room number so that we can accurately assign a printer to the device.

With spares being issued by school site as opposed to room, what's the best way to quickly assign an accurate hostname that follows our naming convention that is also teacher-friendly?

Is it best to just issue an ubermix key and hope they get it correct (after some training of course) or

[urkomasse]

You could prepare a remote update script for printer configuration that looks at the MAC address of the network card, and configures printers based on that.


When you give out a loaner, you can go to the server and change this script, no need to change anything on the loaner itself. And the printers will get configured as soon as the laptop connects to the network.


What do you think?