Re: System administration tool

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel nuclecu unam mx>]

> * Programmers should not have to write an entire GUI to build a
> GUI-based tool.  HTML forms are marvelous this way.  

They can use glade, the GUI designer to create their guis and provide
code in C, C++, Ada or Perl.

> And i DO know basic Unix client/server
> programming.  And of course, the fewer libraries involved, the easier
> security will be.

You mighe end up reimplemeting a subset of CORBA for no good reason.

> Communication will take place via a unix domain socket, which
> guarantees locality.  This reduces the complexity of authentication
> and increases security.  Others may wish to write a TCP/IP
> server... good for them!  The server will authenticate the client
> independently via OS mechanisms, which may be kludges - Unix doesn't
> have a good mechanism for authenticating over unix-domain sockets (BSD
> 4.4 does, but i don't have that functionality in Linux or most other
> unices).  

You can do this by having the user share a secret with the
root-running process.  Ie, have them use a secret handshake that both
sides know (similar to what libgnorba does).

> If you've stayed with me this long, thank you.  :}  What do you think?

Great idea.  But please consider my CORBA idea:  I want to use CORBA
to provide an API for services in the system: not only administrative
tools, but access to devices and services with a clean-callable
interface instead of having a hack-per-service as we currently have in
Unix.

Best wishes,
Miguel.