Bug 39427 - Exam mode should not remove exam users home directory
Exam mode should not remove exam users home directory
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: UCS@school
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UMC - Exam mode
UCS@school 4.1 R2
Other Linux
: P5 normal (vote)
: UCS@school 4.x
Assigned To: UCS@school maintainers
:
Depends on: 46719 46720
Blocks: 44157
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Reported: 2015-09-29 14:10 CEST by Sönke Schwardt-Krummrich
Modified: 2020-07-08 17:58 CEST (History)
5 users (show)

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What kind of report is it?: Feature Request
What type of bug is this?: ---
Who will be affected by this bug?: ---
How will those affected feel about the bug?: ---
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Enterprise Customer affected?:
School Customer affected?: Yes
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Bug group (optional): Usability
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Description Sönke Schwardt-Krummrich univentionstaff 2015-09-29 14:10:53 CEST
When stopping the exam mode, the home directory of the exam users is removed directly after collecting the exam files. There has been at least one case, where the students have saved their results not within the exam folder but in the root of their exam user home directory. The teacher stopped the exam and the results were lost.

Possible solution:
- do not remove exam user's home directory via UMC module
- after removing the user, the listener module remove-old-homedirs.py moves the 
  exam home directory to the backup directory (default: /home/backup)
- add an adjustable cronjob that checks the backup directory for "outdated" exam 
  home directories and removes them ("outdated" means e.g. "older than 8 days").

Possible Extension:
- the cron job should also check the other backed up home directories and remove 
  outdated directories (with different expiration date).
Comment 1 Michel Smidt 2017-11-17 22:13:49 CET
The customer reported that it is very important for teachers that for no reason any data will be lost during exam mode. As reported unfortunately the home-shares are immediately deleted after stopping the exam mode. Thats the main reason why teachers from the customer do not use the exam mode anymore.

(In reply to Sönke Schwardt-Krummrich from comment #0)
> 
> Possible solution:
> - do not remove exam user's home directory via UMC module
> - after removing the user, the listener module remove-old-homedirs.py moves
> the 
>   exam home directory to the backup directory (default: /home/backup)
+1 
So, I suggest a backup functionality for the home-shares and a big disclaimer at the beginning and end of the exam mode. It is not necessary to make this backups  directly accesible for the teacher itself but for a Administrator it should be possible to restore the results (Desktops included).
> - add an adjustable cronjob that checks the backup directory for "outdated"
> exam 
>   home directories and removes them ("outdated" means e.g. "older than 8
> days").
+1
> 
> Possible Extension:
> - the cron job should also check the other backed up home directories and
> remove 
>   outdated directories (with different expiration date).
Comment 2 Markus Dählmann 2018-01-26 16:55:02 CET
Suggestion/request: Do not move the backed-up home directories to /home/backup, but to a folder that is accessible to teachers via Samba, so they can extract data without consulting an administrator. This is required by one of our schools for safely using exam mode.