Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 19:48:29 -0500 From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com> To: Peter van Heusden <pvh@leftside.wcape.school.za> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Adding a new user interface to FreeBSD administration Message-ID: <19980623194829.05384@futuresouth.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980623170004.4982C-100000@leftside.wcape.school.za>; from Peter van Heusden on Tue, Jun 23, 1998 at 05:47:00PM %2B0200 References: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980623170004.4982C-100000@leftside.wcape.school.za>
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On Tue, Jun 23, 1998 at 05:47:00PM +0200, Peter van Heusden woke me up to tell me: > Having recently worked on a WWW oriented user interface for FreeBSD, and > looked at some recent work on similar projects, I've been thinking about > the problems of providing an alternative interface to configuring FreeBSD > (alternative to vi, that is). > > Basically, the problem operates on 2 levels - the first, and easiest to > solve, is automating the editing of various configuration files > (/etc/rc.conf, /etc/crontab and others). The second problem is structuring > changes to the configuration in a meaningful way - for instance, if a > modem is connected to the computer on /dev/cuaa1, both PPP and UUCP will > probably want to talk to /dev/cuaa1. I've been looking at doing this sort of thing for a while. I've been planning on a 2-level system: 1) Shell script/perl script/C program/whatever to edit the config files 2) (not my forte) cutesy, perhaps graphical, front-end to the script So, the first step is to write scripts/programs to create/edit the various config files: pppconfig, maybe some nice wrappers around pw, syslogconf, even a profileconf and cshconf, heck, let's complicate things more and make a rc.confconf. Just find every config file that people will need to edit, and write a script/program to do the changes. THEN write a cutesy front-end to the script/program. Perhaps not the absolute most efficient way, but easy to design, easy to use, and easy to peel away the layers you don't want/need. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | FreeBSD; the way computers were meant to be | * "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is * | that I haven't figured out how to light the middle yet."| * fullermd@futuresouth.com :-} MAtthew Fuller * | http://keystone.westminster.edu/~fullermd | *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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