[GSoC 2012] - Samba Gtk+

[Dhananjay Sathe]

Hello Everyone,

 Its been a  while since I wrote a mail to this list , Hope you al are
doing well. Its been a terribly hectic and few months.
I couldn't help but notice that Samba Gtk again features on the list of
project ideas with some interesting and unique ideas and Samba being a
selected org this would be a project I would definitely love to work on and
further my contribution to the Samba project.
Earlier this week , I had a discussion with Jelmer regarding the same and
after some thinking and his valuable inputs i came to a few possible
conclusions.
>From my past intimate experience with this particular project and the
aforementioned discussions,
there seem to be 2 currently pressing issues  and I propose to address his
time around .
*
Future Proofing - ** Gtk3 and Python3 compatibility timeframe 3-4 weeks *
There has been a major switch to Gnome-3 based environment based on Gobject
of late and this trend is only going to accelerate as adoption grows. Also
as samba 4 nears completion and a likely Samba-Gtk will definitely see a
sudden surge in adoption among these new users.
Given the above circumstance it will be prudent to port this application to
Gtk-3 and move away from pygtk2 that will eventually be deprecated as its
gradually phased out. Being intimately familiar with the codebase of the
Samba-Gtk Project and having authored some of its content I could easily
and quickly accomplish this task with good accuracy and quite quickly .

As an additional idea while undertaking this task it struck me that
Samba-Gtk uses samba-python DCERPC bindings , currently samba builds
against python 2.7 (latest),and would eventually move to python3 .The
majority of this code deals with either these bindings and Gtk code . Very
little code is actually uses major deal breakers between the changes from
python2 to 3. (Perhaps the exception handling code needs to be modified to
reflect the new behaviour ???)
Most of these new styles are already supported by python 2.7 and 2.6. and
wouldn't add much to the major code re-factoring that will in any case be
implemented for the switch to Gtk-3 .* Basically it will remain based on
Python2 at the moment but the code will be written such that as and when
the bindings do switch to python3 the Samba-Gtk code will already be
equipped to use those with no to trivial modifications.

**Timeframe 3-4 weeks *
Perhaps (I can start working on his during the community bonding and
interim period and probably shave of a week due to my familiarity with the
code, samba and the community and experience in it )
*
*
*Addition of a Feature to enable **Active Directory Domain Management" /
"Windows Domain Management"
*

A tool for for managing the participation of the machine in a domain. This
could prove to be an extremely useful utility to a large number of users to
deal with domain joins and merges . As Jelmer recommended I could probably
integrate these utilities to show up in the Gnome Control Center  (This
would be a logical and make it easy for a user to find it)  .This can be
accomplished using the wkssvc DCERPC interface which is accessible via the
samba-pyhon bindings.

*Timeframe 5-6 weeks *
This will be phase 2 and the major par for addition of a new feature of my
project .


This is the rough outline and corer idea of the project plan of what i
propose to implement . I am currently in the middle of my mid semester
exams which will wind up on 2nd Apr. After which i will write out a step by
step detailed official GSoC proposal further describing and illustrating my
plan of action.
That will include  mock-ups, further technical details and time-lines and
roadmap, etc.

Please Nitpick, Do Drop in your comments suggestions and views on the above
idea . It will go a long way in creating a streamlined proposal plan and
coming out with a good and productive plan that will be beneficial and
successful .

Hoping to get your valuable inputs and suggestions to help make this a
success.

Cheers !!!

Dhananjay Deepak Sathe | +919764871950
dhananjaysathe at gmail.com,dhananjaysathe at acm.org,f2009260 at bits-goa.ac.in,<f2009260 at bits-goa.ac.in>
Blog : http://dsathe.blogspot.com
3rd Year Undergraduate,
BE(Hons) Electronics and Instrumentation,
BITS Pilani Goa Campus.