IServ

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
IServ portal server
Logo of the school server IServ
developer IServ GmbH
License (s) commercial, partial components under various open source licenses
Current  version 02/18/23-0 (stable)
ancestry Version 1:
GNU / Linux
↳ Red Hat Linux
↳ IServ
Version 2 or higher :
GNU / Linux
↳ Debian GNU / Linux
↳ IServ
Architecture (s) x86 or i386 (32 bit), amd64 (64 bit)
Installation medium CD , USB memory stick
Languages) German English
www.iserv.eu

IServ is a Debian- based, paid school server that enables the establishment of a school network including a web portal. The focus in development is on simple operation and administration. Various modules allow users to work on tasks or take part in video conferences.

history

The development began in August 2000 and took place within the framework of the work of the administration team of the Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Schule Braunschweig . Half a year later , in February 2001, the first preliminary version under Red Hat Linux 7.1 was published.

Distribution received its first award in May 2001 from the Jugend forscht competition , in which Jörg Ludwig and Felix Klose took third place.

One year after the start of development, the Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Schule was the first school to convert its school network to IServ, and in November 2001 the developers updated the underlying Red Hat Linux to version 7.2.

An installation CD based on Red Hat Linux 7.3 was first released in September 2002. A forum was provided through a specially set up IServ installation, which offers administrators exchange and support.

In September 2003 the word mark “IServ” was registered with the German Patent and Trademark Office and entered in the register in November 2003. The entry was published in January 2004. Since then, IServ has been protected as a trademark and can be found in the official publication and register database under the registration number 30348231.

The hundredth installation was announced in March 2005.

When the development of IServ 2 began in July 2007, the developers switched from Red Hat to Debian Etch . IServ 2 was released in May 2008.

Braunschweiger IServ GmbH has been behind the system since May 2009 . In addition to further development, this also provides hardware and software support for the server. The administration of the system should be so simple that no trained system administrator is required.

In March 2010 the 500th school server was put into operation.

The Society for Education and Information from Berlin awarded the Comenius Seal in June 2011 .

The extension to 64-bit support took place in October 2011 by updating to "Debian Squeeze".

In June 2014, IServ reached more than two thirds of schools in Lower Saxony and was used in over 1000 schools in Germany. Due to the corona crisis, IServ will provide all interested schools with a free cloud version of the school server from March 2020 until at least summer 2020. In addition, the school server was supplemented by a video conference solution (based on BigBlueButton ) in mid-April 2020 . In April 2020, over 2,400 schools were using IServ.

IServ is also sold through local distribution partners in the respective federal states.

Functions

Basic functions

Automatic assurance of system integrity

One of the heart of IServ is the program iservchkthat continuously ensures that all required services are correctly configured and started.

Rights system

IServ creates groups that are associated with users . In addition, roles have existed since IServ 3 that have the same functions in the rights system as groups, but do without some functions such as the file area and e-mail distribution list. This should make it possible to combine a large number of users without any problems. Every user and every group is given a protected area for file management and an email address. Groups also receive a forum and, optionally, a chat area, the use of which is reserved for group members. These assignments are also used for file access via network shares.

Groups can also be assigned additional rights, for example resetting passwords, controlling Internet access for connected computers, writing news entries or administering the server.

Specifically, special rights can be used to differentiate, for example, between students, teachers and administrators.

Web portal

IServ provides the IDesk web portal , which enables the server to be used and administered from the local network and, if required, from the Internet.

The portal is divided into a user and an administrator area.

In the user area you can send e-mails , use a calendar , manage files and communicate with other users via a chat system and a forum .

The administration area enables administrators without any special knowledge of the underlying Linux system to configure and manage the server. For example, users can be created, blocked or deleted, groups and the assigned users can be managed or the guidelines for Internet access from the network can be configured. A search mask enables easy access to IServ's own log files. More fundamental settings can also be made, for example the name of the NT domain can be changed or the DHCP server can be deactivated. For this purpose, the central configuration file of the IServ system can be edited in the browser.

The menus and views can be changed with the appropriate knowledge of PHP and Linux by making modifications at the file level.

Modules

The server can be expanded to include IServ modules . These are extensions that provide additional functions and have access to the web portal. The modules can be installed either via the module manager provided by the web portal or directly using the Debian package management . If the latter option is used, in-house developments can also be installed on the system via a Debian repository .

For example, the following modules exist for the following purposes:

  • Show substitution and cafeteria plans
  • manage a school library via the web interface
  • Conduct surveys
  • Regularly back up data on the server's hard drives to a second server
  • Integration of collaborative editing of texts using Etherpad Lite
  • Automatically distribute software to connected computers and install Windows and Linux operating systems without user intervention.

Network management

IServ makes it possible to administer the school network to a certain extent. For example, a RADIUS server is provided that can restrict remote and WLAN access for users. A MAC address filtering makes it possible to make access to the Internet is not authorized devices, but this filtering alone does not prevent communication on the local network. There is also a software distribution for the installation and maintenance of Windows operated computers and their application software, for which the open source software opsi from uib is used. Support for macOS is currently not planned, although basic functions can already be used. Support for Linux clients is currently in the test phase, not all functions are available yet. Currently only Ubuntu is officially supported, but the package provided for the IServ client can usually also be used for other operating systems of the Debian family such as Linux Mint .

technology

The basic operating system in IServ 1 was initially Red Hat Linux , after its development was discontinued, the developers with IServ 2 decided to switch to Debian / GNU Linux. This enables experienced Linux administrators to easily adapt the IServ to their own needs, for example additional servers such as a MySQL database server can be installed on the system without any problems .

A web interface is used in IServ 1 and 2, the main features of which have not changed since the publication in 2001. In IServ 3, this will be gradually replaced by a newly developed one based on the free Symfony 2 web framework ; this is intended to facilitate access to IServ using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets , as the old interface is only suitable to a limited extent.

The scripts that IServ uses to generate the IDesks and to manage the system are mainly written in the programming languages Perl , Bash and PHP and can be viewed by server owners without any problems, as the source code was deliberately not obfuscated using a source code encryption tool .

The free Apache software is used as the web server that delivers the IDesk . The mail service is based on the Mail Transfer Agent Exim Version 4 and the Mail Delivery Agent Cyrus . PostgreSQL is used as the database . The technology for the Windows domain and the file server is based on the free software Samba . The software distribution module is partly based on the uib opsi server. The WebDAV server is based on SabreDAV and the calendar on the DAViCal software.

Web links

Commons : IServ  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IServ download . IServ GmbH. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b The IServ concept . In: The daily newspaper . November 6, 2013, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 21 ( online ).
  3. ↑ IServ - the communication platform of tomorrow: multifunctional, reliable and user-friendly . Stiftung Jugend forscht e. V. . 2001. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  4. ↑ Support IServ . IServ GmbH. Retrieved April 25, 2014.
  5. ^ Register information from the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) . German Patent and Trademark Office . Retrieved March 29, 2014.
  6. ↑ IServ services . IServ GmbH. January 4, 2011. Archived from the original on March 9, 2014. Retrieved on March 9, 2014.
  7. ↑ Comenius EduMedia Awards 2011 for exemplary ICT-based educational media awarded in Berlin (doc; 330 kB) In: Press information June 24, 2011 . Institute for Education and Media of the Society for Education and Information e. V .. S. 21. June 25, 2010. Archived from the original on January 8, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 15, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gpi-online.de
  8. ↑ IServ references . IServ GmbH. June 12, 2013. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
  9. ↑ After more than 1,000 free IServs in the cloud, the video conference function now follows - IServ reacts immediately to requests from schools! - IServ school server. Retrieved April 26, 2020 .
  10. ↑ DIERCK company group IT system house . Dierck Kommunikationstechnik Handels GmbH. Retrieved September 20, 2014.
  11. ↑ Can teachers monitor their students on the Internet? In: Hamburger Abendblatt . No. 273 , November 22, 2013, p. 7 .
  12. ^ IServ modules . IServ GmbH. January 4, 2011. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
  13. ↑ Documentation for the IServ client for Linux
  14. ↑ Jörg Ludwig and Felix Klose: Iserv the communication platform of tomorrow: multifunctional, reliable and user-friendly. (pdf) Written documentation as part of the special learning achievement. In: iserv.eu. August 2000, p. 13 , archived from the original on November 24, 2014 ; accessed on May 5, 2020 .