From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Jan 29 18:16:50 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA15534 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:16:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA15506 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:16:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA00735; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:38:47 +1030 (CST) Message-Id: <199801300208.MAA00735@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Terry Lambert cc: joe.shevland@horizonti.com (Joe Shevland), hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, capriotti@geocities.com, capriotti0@hotmail.com Subject: Re: WebAdmin In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:56:56 -0000." <199801300156.SAA10679@usr01.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:38:47 +1030 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG X-To-Unsubscribe: mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org "unsubscribe hackers" I've been waiting for people to actually move this discussion to the -config mailing list, which is where it belongs. I've also avoided weighing in because I haven't heard anything new yet. > This would all be a lot easier if all FreeBSD configuration information > went to one place, and was accessed via one set of methods. Perhaps > the LDAP methods, which are freely downloadable from the NetScape > developer resources page at www.netscape.com? I'm not sure if I like these yet. > The massive number of FreeBSD databases need not change for this to > work. FreeBSD could keep its fear of change and its proliferation > of hundreds of incompatible text file and database formats, if it > wanted to. You can write any LDAP back end you want to, including > one that would allow you register multiple databases to manage > various parts of the LDAP tree. Yes. Funnily enough, I have been looking at making the 'juliet' tool work as a backend for the umich SLAPD LDAP daemon. The real gotcha with this is security; SLAPD's security is relatively poor. Oh, and getting people to accept DNs, which aren't the nicest things to read or write. > Finally, for boot and local usage, you would probably want to implement > a native access to the LDAP methods. This would let you directly > access the database data, instead of requiring that you get your net > up before you can set up your net (catch 22). It wouldn't be hard to use a unix-domain socket for this. Start the LDAP server early enough and you're in business. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\