project smb_dyn: adminitration of samba server over MySQL

[Stephan Lauffer]

Hi all!

I´ve written several mails with Luke, because I´ve begun to work on
a project to administrate a whole farm of samaba server. By the time
Werner Nagel is working on the php interface and Timo Trinks will
write the website and docus.

Have a look at:
http://www.linux-future.de/smbdyn/

On this site you´ll found a description, a first snapshot of Werners Interface
(based on phpMyAdmin) with the shares of 4 server. (only possible to read
out some stuff).

The project is very "young" - the first idea I had about 7 days ago.
By the time I´m looking for a (good) way to get the configuration back to the 
smbd (smb.conf).

One way to get the config back - the INSTALL.pl script blows a allready existing
smb.conf into the MySQL db. You only has to set your MySQL parameters in a global
conf file, so this way may work ;-) - is to read out the stuff with a preexec 
script. But this is not very easy, becaus:
1.) "include" can´t use the makro %S (which is necessary)
2.) smbd must change the config for the share "on the fly".

So, the following will not work:
--- smb.conf ---
[myshare]
  preexec = smb_dyn.pl %G %L %I %S %U
  include = smb_dyn.%G.%L.%I.%S.%U.inc
---

Last week then a finished a first test version, which generated 
a "second depth" of smb.conf file by itself, so that the old smb.conf only had
an entry of the new smb_dyn.default.inc file.
With this workaround I solved the problem with the macro %S:
-- smb.default.inc ---
[myshare]
  preexec = smb_dyn.pl %G %L %I %S %U
  include = smb_dyn.%G.%L.%I.myshare.%U.inc
---

But there a other problems - smbd don´t update the config fast enough... and so on...

Luke thought about a api in c-code!
(cool!)
I´m not a programmer, so I don´t know if i always could finish such a project.
(Learning perl and SQL is enough for me. ;)) )

At present I make myself over a good concept for the optional tables share and user thought.
It´s possible to make the "wildest configurations", but you must have a "select engine" wich
will work correct everytime and you need a good web admin tool to understand complex
configurations.
[my english is bad - sorry]

It will be very fine, if someone will have a look at your project - you can set up your
smb.conf very easy into a MySQL db! Just download the INSTALL.pl and smb_dyn.conf file,
read the short INSTALL and... 

Please let me say, that we don´t have a lot of time and we´re no hackers. Our project is
very young - surely there are a lot of bugs and many code can be written better.
Please let us here what you think about smb_dyn!

Liebe Gruesse, yours,
Stephan Lauffer

[ Paedagogische Hochschule Freiburg - Systemtechnik - Germany    ]
[ Abteilung ZIK: <a href="http://www.ph-freiburg.de/zik">WWW</a> ]