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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>Just my 2 cents,<br>A<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Martin Langhoff <<a href="mailto:martin.langhoff@gmail.com">martin.langhoff@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 12:52 AM, John Watlington <<a href="mailto:wad@laptop.org">wad@laptop.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> PHP security is viewed as less than acceptable for interfaces<br>
> accessible from the open Internet.<br>
<br>
</div>Excellent point.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> Should the configuration interface should also be available on the<br>
> WAN interface ?<br>
> My opinion is yes.<br>
<br>
</div>Agreed.<br>
<br>
However, I don't want to constrain anyone researching backend and<br>
libraries. If the best thing out there is implemented and maintained<br>
in PHP, we may wrap it in something better for our purposes.<br>
<br>
No language flamefests *just yet*. Those are scheduled for next month ;-)<br>
<br>
<br>
martin<br>
<font color="#888888">--<br>
<a href="mailto:martin.langhoff@gmail.com">martin.langhoff@gmail.com</a><br>
</font><div class="Ih2E3d"> <a href="mailto:martin@laptop.org">martin@laptop.org</a> -- School Server Architect<br>
- ask interesting questions<br>
- don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first<br>
- <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff</a><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Aaron Huslage - 503.860.1634<br><a href="http://blog.hact.net">http://blog.hact.net</a><br>IM: AIM - ahuslage; Yahoo - ahuslage; MSN - <a href="mailto:huslage@gmail.com">huslage@gmail.com</a>; GTalk - <a href="mailto:huslage@gmail.com">huslage@gmail.com</a>