From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Nov 27 18:15:13 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id SAA21157 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:15:13 -0800 Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id SAA21130 for ; Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:14:59 -0800 Received: from msmith@localhost by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.9) id CAA06653; Tue, 28 Nov 1995 02:08:12 GMT From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199511280208.CAA06653@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Thoughts on the install and on Red Hat Linux. To: bakul@netcom.com (Bakul Shah) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 02:08:11 +0000 () Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199511271937.LAA05263@netcom22.netcom.com> from "Bakul Shah" at Nov 27, 95 11:37:18 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2254 Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Bakul Shah stands accused of saying: > > Have you considered using one of the free http clients & > servers to implement the user interface and call cgi scripts > with user specified input? Hmm. So, for ram<8M, we do text, for 8M I think I suggested this once before to you but after this > experience I am convinced that this is the way to do a lot > of configuration, system administration etc. You can use an > ASCII based client when X is not available and use X based > client when it is. If you can get unix upto the point where > httpd can run and networking is up you can even do remote > installation. This really isn't a silly idea for administration, but AFAIK (not being an expert on these things), there isn't a _small_ http server around, that can run on minimal configuration (read: almost none) > I realise that much groundwork remains to be done and even > if we did this, actual installation problems still need to > be solved, but at least as a model this should be > considered. For instance, rather than defining your own > forms language just use HTML. HTML will also allow you to > put in links for help files etc. I really should put > together a prototype.... anyway, if anyone is interested we > can explore this idea further. It certainly beats the hell out of inventing another forms language. The possibilities for managing most of the install from a seperate node are also attractive. I've always felt that the best way of managing an installation on a headless router would be to point the console stuff somewhere else; this would be one way of doing it. (A "click here" link that brings up a telnet session to the 'install-debug" port 8) So many ideas 8) > --bakul (note followups, as suggested by Jordan, to install@freebsd.org) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 041-122-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] "Who does BSD?" "We do Chucky, we do." [[