Re: [Gnome-admin-tools] [Nautilus-list] Re: Gnome-admin-tools digest, Vol 1 #7 - 17 msgs

[Walt Pohl <cher suitware com>]

Let me summarize the current plan for the gnome-admin-tools project (as
I understand it -- these were all hammered out by Hans Petter Jansson
and Miguel).

The design principles for the initial version of the tool set are:

1) The "customer" for the tools is the ordinary desktop user who needs
to administer his/her machine, without any previous Unix experience.
2) Our initial focus is the tools themselves, rather than a general tool
infrastructure.
3) The tools work with the standard system configuration files, rather
than supplanting them.
So passwords are still kept in /etc/passwd, etc.
4) The tools also should work with the way things work on a given
platform/distribution.  For 
example, on Redhat, the network tool set up /etc/sysconfig/network, etc.

The design for each tool itself is:

1) A GUI-less backend that converts system configuration files into XML,
and vice versa.
1) A front-end, written in C/Glade, which reads and writes XML data.

Using XML (as opposed to a set of custom CORBA interfaces, say) gives us
a lot of flexibility:

1) The configuration data is human-readable and -editable.
2) You can store the XML as a backup, for multiple versions, to keep a
"last known good" version, etc.
3) You can push out the XML to multiple machines.
4) You can easily replace the front-end independently of the back-end. 
So you can write a web interface, Java interface, KDE interface, etc.
5) Since XML is transport-independent, you can plug in alternate
transport mechanisms:  for example, you could serve up the XML over http
and SSL.

At the moment, the front-end execs the backend and reads and writes the
XML data through pipes.

There is one complete tool already in CVS for anyone who's interested: 
it configures both DNS and WINS name resolution.

So far, we have divided up the work as follows:

Hans -- name resolution, network configuration.
us (suitware) -- user administration, NFS and Samba mounts/exports, and
printer configuration (including Samba printing).

Walt


Ty Augustine wrote:
> 
> Eazel is also planning to add the below functionality
> in Nautilus -- possibly as a control panel type view.
> And they are a accepting hackers to work on different
> parts...  I was planning to be one of those hackers
> but I like the idea of gconf, gnome-vfs, and XML
> better.
> 
> We need to sync up efforts.
> 
> --- gnome-admin-tools-admin helixcode com wrote:
> 
> > > - Network parameters (interfaces & protocols).
> > >
> > > - Name resolution (hostname, domain, hosts,
> > nameservers).
> > >
> > > - Local harddisk mounts (user gets hew harddisk or
> > wants to mount his Windows
> > >   partition).
> > >
> > > - NFS imports and exports.
> > >
> > > - Samba imports and exports. We need to talk with
> > the gnomba guys here.
> > >
> > > - Printers.
> > >
> > > - User access list for this host (passwd and
> > configuration ACL).
> > >
> > > - User groups.
> > >
> > > - X server configuration (primarily resolution and
> > colour depth). Display
> > >   adapters still have to be set up outside GNOME,
> > unless we want to be
> > >   really tricky.
> >
> > Can we add:
> >
> >       * Time/Date
> >
> >       * User definition and permission granting.
> >
> >       * Login configuration (GDM and whether GDM should
> > even show a
> >           login box)
> >
> >       * "Sharing" which should encapsulate any method for
> >           "exporting" file systems and importing
> > file systems.  The
> >           NFS/samba difference should not exist to
> > the user, it should
> >           be basically just a comment (This is an
> > NFS-based share).
> >
> >       * Memory: would let you configure your swap for
> > systems that
> >           have this, create swap, delete it, etc.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Miguel.
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints!
> http://photos.yahoo.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Gnome-admin-tools maillist  -  Gnome-admin-tools helixcode com
> http://lists.helixcode.com/mailman/listinfo/gnome-admin-tools