From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jan 30 12:20:17 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA09668 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:20:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from webserver.smginc.com (webserver.smginc.com [204.170.176.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA09644; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:20:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from AdamT@smginc.com) Received: from smginc.com ([204.170.177.4]) by webserver.smginc.com (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-13723) with SMTP id AAA192; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:21:52 -0500 Received: by smginc.com with Microsoft Mail id <34D25FB6@smginc.com>; Fri, 30 Jan 98 15:18:14 PST From: Adam Turoff To: "'mike@smith.net.au'" , Karl Pielorz Cc: hackers , config Subject: RE: FreeBSD updated Installation / Adminsitration Kit Date: Fri, 30 Jan 98 15:19:00 PST Message-ID: <34D25FB6@smginc.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG X-To-Unsubscribe: mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org "unsubscribe hackers" Mike writes: > > 1. We write something that will 'install' FreeBSD with emphasis on ease of > > use, size, and the fact it will run very nicely on FreeBSD and let people > > install it (I hate to use the words 'Like windows 95'). > > Get over it. Microsoft spent gobs of money coming up with a set of > rules that result in an interface that's easy to use. There's nothing > dishonourable in stealing their ideas. After all, they stole most of their ideas, anyway. :-) [bobbit] > > 3. We write something that tries to accomplish both the above, hopefully not > > causing too many compromises. > > This would be a major layering mistake. I don't know about that. There are two interrelated issues here, as you point out. First, we need a virgin installer to get FreeBSD on new hardware. That should leave a system that can be admined by something more friendly than cryptic UNIX commands documented over $100 worth of O'Reilly titles. THAT will help evangelize FreeBSD IMNSHO. Here's the way I see it, as concisely as possible: improve sysinstall, and leave that config available for later allow a system to be reconfiged later with good tools prevent tool-implementation lock in by allowing multiple tools to do the day-to-day admin, local or remote In short, sysinstall and/or it's successor should dovetail nicely with some new config framework, probably using LDAP. > You haven't played with juliet yet: > ftp://ftp.gsoft.com.au/misc/juliet.tar.gz I plead guilt to that charge as well. :-) > The name parsing will probably change in order to fit into the > Distinguished Name schema that LDAP uses, but the basically modular and > method-based design will remain. > > With a little tinkering this will let people write backend modules in > almost any language they like. I know it works with Tcl and C > (although I removed the shared library code for rework), Perl would be > a trivial addition, etc. This is along the lines of what I'm seeing as well. It's just that I tend not to put the letters L, D, A and P together in a sentence. > > SO - Yet again, I'm asking: > > > > a) Who's up for this? > > Yes. Ditto. > > b) How do we get organized? (Divide and conquer always seems to work for me > > ) > > If I may make a suggestion; given that I'm claiming the installer, I > would recommend that you look at the umich LDAP server > (/usr/ports/net/ldap) and juliet, and start making rude remarks about > the module interface for the backend. OK. > Read Netscape's LDAP developer pages, and work out how to talk to an > LDAP server from Netscape. Start thinking (and talking) about how to > tie all this together. OK. I did this in August, and barely made heads or tails out of it. What I got out of it was this: LDAP, like XML and SQL is an enabling standard that makes complex things simpler and more approachable. Is that a good soundbite definition? > And subscribe (and post) to config@freebsd.org. OK. I'll start here. :-) -- Adam.