Linux in the Olivet Community Schools

["Ralph M. Deal" <deal@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi, local LINUXers,

While my main responsibility in the OCS is maintaining the constantly
changing
web pages for the Olivet Middle School, I try to give advice on the
LINUX server 
through which internet connections are made to the outside world for
users (primarliy teachers) 
on an Novell net.  I have no account on this server and don't know much
about such
network arrangements. I am concerned that the non-LINUX, non-UNIX,
relatively
amateurish managers of the system are about to give up on the LINUX
server for what
I am sure are inappropriate reasons.

The network connection is peculiar in that Olivet Community schools do
NOT have an
internet connection themselves at all but use a line to the local
Regional Education 
Management Center (?), REMC1.k12.mi.us.  REMC12 has olivetschools.org
aliased to 
REMC12.k12.mi.us/olivet/ where a OCS sheet has links to pages on the
LINUX server
at OCS.  The problem is that regularly users have no access to the
Olivet Middle School 
(& other linked pages from the olivet page) AND their attempts to use
mail.olivetschools.org
from outside the local network fail.  Similarly, I cannot use FTP into
the server
to update the middle school pages when this problem holds.  You can see
the problem if it
persists by looking at the URL:  olivetschools.org.

 A local consultant who used to be the IT specialist at OCS
(and before that a teacher of Computer Science in the OCS high school)
who does NOT
know LINUX (the system was set up by someone who left the system) was
able to fix the problem 
a week or so ago by removing a series of error messages sent to the
postmaster (namely that consultant) 
who only looks at the system when there is a problem.  The current IT
persons believe the
problem is in a local DNS address but I doubt that.   Because of the
peculiar hardware intermediate
access to the internet, the problem could be at either end of that
hardware line (REMC12 or OCS).

Now:  How can I keep this LINUX server functioning smoothly so that it
is not dumped for
some expensive proprietary software?  Does the LINUX server manager need
to check the system
for message regularly?  Is there a way I can be given permission to
access the server remotely
regularly to check for problems?  How do I determine where the problem
lies?

Eager to learn, as always,    Ralph   deal@kzoo.edu