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Music Tech
Asked: 2010-08-10 18:03:09 +0800 CST

File sharing/permissions scheme for students/teachers/staff?

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I've recently inherited administration of an Xserve running OS X Server 10.5.8. I have a specific need for teaching staff to access the home folders of students via network shares. Ideally in groups - i.e. the home folders of students in Class A, the home folders of students in Class B etc. Of course students can be in both classes or just one. So, teacher chooses share "ClassA" and it lists the home folders, with access rights for r&w.

Any suggestions on how to set this up?

Thanks!

mac-osx-server file-sharing permissions share schema

2 Answers

  1. One suggestion is to add all of the teachers of studentA to the studentA group, and give the group studentA read/write access to all of the files that studentA owns. You might have to enforce that through a crontab unless you can prevent the students from changing permissions.

    Example:

    passwd:

    studentA
studentB
teacherA
teacherB
teacherC

    classes:

    teacherA teaches studentA
teacherB teaches studentB
teacherC teaches studentA and studentB

    groups: (name: member, member, ...)

    studentA: studentA, teacherA, teacherC
studentB: studentB, teacherB, teacherC
teacherA: teacherA
teacherB: teacherB
teacherC: teacherC

    If you also want to create (for each teacher) a directory with symbolic links to all of their students home directories, that would make things a little simpler for the teacher.

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  2. Are you sure that this is what they need? I don't mean to offend, but I've found that most of my teachers' needs were better addressed through other methods. For example, I set up a "Drop Box" share point. I then put a folder for each teacher in it. That folder is set to be world-writeable, but only readable by the teacher's account. Students can then hand in work by copying their files into the teacher's folder. They've come to call this "drop-boxing" it and really like it. Its easy to learn, its scaled well over many years and hundreds of students. The teachers even use it to send each other large files.

    If I had a better grasp of your needs, maybe I could see why the above doesn't work for you. Or even suggest a better method.

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