Three days of training later on the forthcoming IPA product as adapted for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family and I think I’ve got my brain wrapped around the functionality, expectations and wrinkles

In fact, this has been more of a case of receiving the first draft of the training material and having to fill in the blanks and provide feedback to help produce what will become the real training materials. Even so, it looks like this project finally provides the framework to address the shortcomings and complexities in building an integrated secured cross-machine access system based on standardised components.  Certainly the various elements involved have been around for a while, but as is so often the case it has taken someone the time and effort to disect the common attributes and standard use cases and put the elements back together into a more cohesive whole. With any luck the result should kickstart a more general re-appraisal of how various disparate components and projects interact, and what basic assumptions they make about their operating environments.

Most of the guys attending the training sessions have either left or will do so early tomorrow, so then begins the task of learning the details of supporting the existing, and more variably complex products.  Perhaps I should patent the idea of headphones with cups underneath to capture the leaking brains for any others who are faced with similar training ordeals.