From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 27 17:20:51 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA02398 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:20:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from fledge.watson.org (root@FLEDGE.RES.CMU.EDU [128.2.91.116]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA02230 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:20:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from robert@cyrus.watson.org) Received: from trojanhorse.pr.watson.org (trojanhorse.pr.watson.org [192.0.2.10]) by fledge.watson.org (8.8.8/8.6.10) with SMTP id UAA16130; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 20:19:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 20:19:25 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson X-Sender: robert@trojanhorse.pr.watson.org Reply-To: Robert Watson To: Joe Shevland cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: /usr/src/release/sysinstall needs YOU. :-) In-Reply-To: <199801280014.LAA15070@oznet11.ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Joe Shevland wrote: > What are peoples' thoughts on a Java administration tool for FreeBSD? One > instant downside would be you'd need an X Server running for any GUI > options. Another would be you'd need the Java runtime environment (BTW, > this is my first posting, so please flame me gently if I'm in the wrong > discussion!). > > Thoughts? Better than a web/form-based admin tool. I find both Netscape and BSDI's administration interfaces using frames/html/forms very frustrating to use :). I had considered working on a Java-based interface, but currently our configuration is relatively non-standard for user-management (Kerberos, non-standard passwd/group distribution with signatures, etc), making such a tool un-useful for anyone else :). The lack of a text-interface is a problem though; if the Java interface accessed another admin daemon, which then interfaced to scripts to perform the management activities, this might actually be alright; anyone could write a front-end for the scripts and retain functionality (and similarly, people wouldn't have to modify the java management program to make small admin changes). Robert N Watson Carnegie Mellon University http://www.cmu.edu/ SafePort Network Services http://www.safeport.com/ robert@fledge.watson.org http://www.watson.org/~robert/