[Server-devel] Web-based Management Interface for the XS

[Aaron Huslage]

I just want to make a quick point. One main reason that many web-based admin
interfaces don't work is because the problem is extremely difficult. Entire
companies have been built to solve this problem and they haven't gotten
nearly good enough for your mother to use. The truth is that to be a
sysadmin, web interfaces just don't cut it for most things. You need to be
well versed in the OS and how it functions.

I propose that we narrow things down considerably from a generic admin
interface into something that amounts to an appliance. It doesn't need to do
everything, just a few things. We can do remote support for some more
advanced things, and allow people access to the "guts" of the system when
they want to do things. It might even be interesting to have a centralized
web service that pre-configures images that can then be downloaded and
installed from a USB stick and removes the need to do any configuration
on-site (I'm sure there are problems with this...just brainstorming). Puppet
is absolutely a good way to remotely manage a bunch of machines.

Basically, we need to abstract out the systemy stuff into something that
anyone can configure from one sheet of paper or a downloaded config file.
Anything that doesn't absolutely need a UI shouldn't have one. The things
that need them should have minimal UIs.

Just my 2 cents,
A

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 12:52 AM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org> wrote:
> >  PHP security is viewed as less than acceptable for interfaces
> >  accessible from the open Internet.
>
> Excellent point.
>
> >  Should the configuration interface should also be available on the
> >  WAN interface ?
> >  My opinion is yes.
>
> Agreed.
>
> However, I don't want to constrain anyone researching backend and
> libraries. If the best thing out there is implemented and maintained
> in PHP, we may wrap it in something better for our purposes.
>
> No language flamefests *just yet*. Those are scheduled for next month ;-)
>
>
> martin
> --
>  martin.langhoff at gmail.com
>  martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
>  - ask interesting questions
>  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
>  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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>



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