Re: [Devel] wls development and future

[Andreas Schuldei <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

* Ragnar Wisløff (ragnar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) [030731 11:46]:
> Until something better than Webmin comes along, we are going with 
> Webmin. 

What in webmin do we really use? any other modules? squid config?
Is that the interface of choice? We use cups with its
web-interface, dont we? So if we dont really rely on webmin, we
might just ditch the beast and use the user-interface stand
alone.

And then, there is the remote chance that our initiative inspires
the webmin upstream and he starts redoing his code. or that he
accepts our module even if it does not fit in the monolitc pile
of modules.

> Unfortunately the coding style is not the best, but we will just 
> have to live with it. However, whether or not the user/group admin 
> management is part of Webmin is another question.

do you say here the same than i did, above? i am not sure.

> Combined with a, if necessary command line, tool to generate batch 
> creation of users, this should be acceptable as a version 1 solution. 
> Naturally the use of a command line tool needs to be documented. This 
> batch tool is vital, start of term is coming up and it will be needed 
> very soon.

I thought Finn-arne got the fileimport working? That is the
batch-processing.

> >if we manage to get wls2 into shape (after restructuring it with
> >CGI::Application and HTML::Template) in time, we ship that. 
> 
> Didn't you mention above that it wouldn't work in the Webmin framework. 
> Maybe I misunderstood.

i am free to insert what ever cgi i please, even one which builds
on external perl modules and is programmed in a different way. I
took refuge to some evil tricks (piping the output from functions
which just print their output, instead of returning it, capturing
it and then return it properly), and dont use webmin fuctionality
more then before, rather less.

> >Once we have a nicely structured user interface we might notice
> >that this is one of the main "added values" of skolelinux and
> >decide to build on this. (i know that other thin-client
> >management and service providers think so, their web based admin
> >interface is one of their main focuses.) it would be easy to do
> >so with the CGI::Applicaton/HTML::Template framwork. Little
> >efford would be needed to seperate it from webmin.
> 
> I think is a good idea. If it means shorter development time, easier 
> maintance and a better user interface then decoupling it from Webmin 
> sounds OK. A few of the other LDAP things could possibly then also go in 
> there.

cool.

> This raises another question: will other modules be able to build on 
> this? I have specifically in mind a management of LTSP networks, both 
> user-wise, network-wise and h/w-wise. Don't build another Webmin, 
> though. Just keep in mind that other modules/functionality will come along.

yes, i think the code is much more reusable this way, so
building in parallel or on top of this should be rather painless.