Date: Mon, 02 Feb 98 14:03:00 PST From: Adam Turoff <AdamT@smginc.com> To: "'hackers@freebsd.org'" <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, "'config@freebsd.org'" <config@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: "'mike@smith.net.au'" <mike@smith.net.au> Subject: Multi-faced admin Message-ID: <34D6422A@smginc.com>
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Looking at Mikael Karpberg page on his architecture for admin'ing a FreeBSD box, I came across a link to Caldera's COAS project: http://www.coas.org I'm rather sorry to say that I haven't looked deeply into some of the broad scope ideas that people have been posting to -hackers recently. (I feel rather guilty that I haven't committed my big picture to bits and bytes yet either.) We all know what it means to be spread thin, I guess. :-) Anyway, skimming over COAS, (Caldera Open Adminstration System), it looks like either it's something worth porting, or it's something worth improving upon. All of the standard knobs are there, like curses/X/Java interfaces, etc. (Sorry, I can't post a summary right now. The code is at v0.09, appears to use lots of python and is GPL'd.) --- Reading the post about UMich's LDAP engine, it sounds rather radical. So, as of the moment, here's a concise view of what I'm seeing/hearing for a FreeBSD framework: - httpd type server (easy to plug any client into/write new clients) - standardized CGI interface subset for admin modules - LDAP for config managment by admin modules Five layers (three for glue) to have any random client reconfigure any part of the system. The top glue is pretty dumb; it just standardizes the interface. The middle glue layer is where all the work is done. The bottom glue layer appears rather dumb, but it should hide the complexity of a bazillion different config file formats (if I'm reading what Mike is saying about LDAP correctly). Sound good? I'll start a prototype in my copious free time before the end of the month. :-) -- Adam. PS: Mike, where can I find some docs, etc. on the UMich LDAP server?
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