proposed net command structure

[Jim McDonough]

Andrew Tridgell wrote:
>What I propose is this:
>
>net rap user   - lists users via rap
>net ads user   - lists users via ads (ldap)
>net rpc user   - lists user via rpc
>net user       - auto-selects which method to use
>
>The auto-selection would work like this:
>
> - if we are a member of an ADS realm then use ADS
> - we are a domain member use rpc
> - otherwise use RAP

Good idea.  I'd been recently thinking about the need to support post-rap
calls, and wondering how best to choose.  Two comments:

1) I'm not sure about putting the method as a positional parameter.  Why
not have it as a flag...e.g. net user --ads or net user --method=ads or
similar (there's got to be a better word that method) parm?  I wasn't crazy
about using positional parameters from the start, but Steve and I did it to
keep it as similar as possible to the Windows-OS/2 command.

2) Define "We are a domain member".  The net command already lets the user
set the user/workgroup/domain strings to pass to the server.  So we might
want to behave as a domain user would without the machine executing the
command belonging to the domain.  I haven't looked deeply into this, but
wouldn't that also be an appropriate time to use RPC?

I've also been wondering about the possibilty of putting some level of net
into 2.2.  We've got a bunch of customers that want it, and I've heard from
some other folks out there that want it.  The original code I checked in
worked on 2.2 with just a few extra #defines up front...

Sorry about the lack of response lately.  I've been on vacation, and Steve
and his wife just had a new baby.

----------------------------
Jim McDonough
IBM Linux Technology Center
Samba Team
6 Minuteman Drive
Scarborough, ME 04074
USA

jmcd at us.ibm.com
jmcd at samba.org

Phone: (207) 885-5565
IBM tie-line: 776-9984


Andrew Tridgell <tridge at samba.org> on 11/24/2001 06:24:01 PM

Please respond to tridge at samba.org

To:   jmcd at samba.org
cc:   samba-technical at samba.org
Subject:  proposed net command structure



Jim,

I'd like to propose a slightly different syntax for the net
command. For each of the commands in net there are often several ways
of implementing it, for example you can dump lists of users via RAP,
MSRPC or ADS. Right now net is very RAP oriented, but I think we
should expand it to do the other methods. This will not only be useful
as a diagnostic tool, but also for our testing.

What I propose is this:

net rap user   - lists users via rap
net ads user   - lists users via ads (ldap)
net rpc user   - lists user via rpc
net user       - auto-selects which method to use

The auto-selection would work like this:

 - if we are a member of an ADS realm then use ADS
 - we are a domain member use rpc
 - otherwise use RAP

The new infrastructure I put into net.c last night should make this
sort of system much easier. Does it sound OK to you?

Cheers, Tridge