What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin?

Dragon_Eater, with "lots of experience setting up PCs and a passable knowledge of Linux but severely lacking in the server/client department," writes with a situation that probably faces a lot of parents: I want to set up three kids, 12, 14, and 15, with newer computers so they will stop fighting for time on the one ten-year-old Dell they share now. I can get the individual computers and a server put together without any problems, but the computer-handicapped single parent needs to be able to do the following via an simple application/web page: View client computer status, On/off, sleeping etc.; Deny Internet access, not LAN, just the web; Schedule time usage of computer, ex. 7 am to 10 pm on school nights etc.; Force log-out and/or shutdown of clients, for grounding purposes; and Apply some kind of firewall filter for blocking undesired web content. And as the administrator for this network I would like the following options: Remote virus scanning of client machines, or scheduled task; Some kind of hardware monitor, high temp / fan speed low etc.; and Email alerts for various log files / alarms. Given the lists above I am thinking about a Linux-based router/server machine and running Windows on the clients for game compatibility. I also know that a server and network boot client is possible but not sure where to start on that one."

Comments

Re:Holy shit

[poetmatt]

implying that people are modding you down because they disagree is a crock of crap.

Since you can't see what people's logic is for the moderation and only the end result of the requisite reason via the options given in slashdot for moderation ,it's a stretch of logic to imply that you know why people moderated something down.

Meanwhile, his post did not answer the OP or the article poster's question. Thus, it was a bad post and asking people not to mod you down for that is like saying "hey, I made a bad post, but don't mod me down because you disagree with it".

Moderation is to moderate, simple.

Also, I agree with twidarkling, which does happen to apply to commodore's post.