News from The Univention Development Team

It‘s been only four weeks that we published UCS 4.3-2, and we already have some more news for you from our development team.

UCS 4.2-5

Two weeks ago we published UCS 4.2-5. Essentially this release bundles the nearly 100 errata updates, mainly security updates and stabilizations that were released for UCS 4.2-4. The upcoming errata updates for UCS 4.2-5 will only be available for customers with an enterprise subscription. If you are a Core Edition user, we therefore recommend you to update to UCS 4.3 so that you continue to receive security updates in the future.

Univention supplies the IT infrastructure for teaching in Bremen‘s schools

group of school kids with tablet pc in classroom

Since 2003, the Bremen „Senator for Children and Education“ has been developing and implementing a centralized offer for the provision of IT infrastructure in Bremen‘s schools. Among other elements, this covers centralized identity and infrastructure management, defined server and desktop environments, software distribution of educational applications for schools, a school software solution for computer-assisted teaching and roll-out, support, update and helpdesk procedures.

Improved Network Security and Performance with a Reverse Proxy

Welt-Laptop-Sicherheit
Providing services on the Internet is part and parcel of day-to-day work in a company nowadays, but you don’t always want the server to be directly accessible from the Internet when doing so. A reverse proxy can control access in such cases using ACLs (access control lists). The reverse proxy can also reduce the number of IP addresses required, as it can provide access to multiple systems behind one IP.

Install Matterbridge & Bridge Mattermost to Chat/ChatOps

graphic about Matterbridge building bridges to other chat tools
At Kopano we have been developing packages to easily install and update Mattermost for quite some time now. For those using the Univention Corporate Server (UCS) we maintain an app that sets up Mattermost and configures it for you automatically.

But what if you already have a chat platform in your company and cannot migrate all users at the same time? Or you want to provide a Mattermost chat for all your customers, but only want to buy a Mattermost subscription for your internal users? Or you have a subset of your users relying on your old chat platform and clients?

Ready to use: Nextcloud, ownCloud, Kopano, OpenProject or Mattermost App Appliances

Appliances are available for a number of apps from the Univention App Center for fast and easy deployment to different virtualization platforms. In the appliances UCS is already pre-installed. The setup of appliances is for the systems simple and always the same: the user runs through a system setup wizard, in which the settings required for operation are made. Then then system configures itself and voilá ….

Beyond Facebook – Safe Social Networking for Schools with HumHub@school

The JOBELMANN-SCHULE – Berufsbildende Schulen I Stade vocational school developed its own social network for teachers and the school administration. Open Source made it possible to set it up in a manner that complies with the latest data privacy regulations, and the use of Univention Corporate Server for the basis also makes it easy to administrate.

The JOBELMANN-SCHULE in Stade has around 2,250 students, almost two thirds of which attend part-time while they complete vocational qualifications. There are 130 members of staff on site offering instruction in more than 20 careers requiring practical training. E-mail communication between the staff and students has long been handled by the groupware “Tine 2.0”, which is based on Univention Corporate Server and which we introduced some time ago with the support of the Hamburg-based company Files Per Hour. However, the majority of faculty members also wanted to offer the students a means of communicating with them outside of class. To this end, they began looking for a platform that spoke to the young people: a social network.

Every knows e-mails, but students are now using this communication channel less frequently and intensively. In addition, many solutions are not secure. In contrast, they do use Facebook, WhatsApp, etc., intensively. Those applications are out of the question for use by a school though, as there is absolutely no guarantee for the protection of personal data. For data privacy reasons, the official use of such networks is also explicitly forbidden for schools in the majority of the German states.

1 Password for All Services and Networks with Single Sign-on

Single Sign-on in UCS at management console

Single Sign-on (SSO) is a process where your users authenticate themselves only once against the system and that’s it. They can then use a whole range of different programs, services, and cloud offerings without having to sign on personally each time again. Your users will love it. No more hassle with inventing and remembering numerous different passwords.

But single sign-on is not only about user friendliness. Another important aspect is, of course, the security of your data. When you’ve got a complex IT infrastructure, which includes mobile apps and devices and cloud services, the security risk increases a lot.

This is why I would like to explain here how you can catch two birds with one stone: Making work easier for your employees with single sign-on technology while keeping your data safer from external attacks at the same time.

Setup of an Efficient IT Infrastructure with Central Identity Management in 261 schools in Cologne

A large-scale project is currently under way in Cologne, Germany: the setup of a standardized, centralized identity infrastructure for all schools. This is set to include considerable simplification of the software distribution and the administration via the education authority over the coming years and measures to ensure that the schools in Cologne are ready for the digitalization of education.