Per-user configuration, was Re:apt-get

[Thomas <sarfata@altern.org>]

> <drifting where="away">Could debconf be modified to handle per-user
> settings as well? This could start with the preferred language and
> windowmanager, but is not limited to it. Also, some sort of on-demand
> configuration for single applications would be nice (You are guided
> through pgp key generation when you first use it etc.).
>

Hi, I am not a debian developper (yet). This is just some thoughts.

I have been playing with LDAP and PAM recently, and I think that a lot of user
specific parameters may be moved to something else that all those .files .

I am not saying that we should move all user-specific options in an LDAP db, but
it would be much cleaner if user configs options were kept in the same place.
The problem is of course file access perms on this file, but some suid packages
could handle this  (like chsh)

It would allow us to write a generic program (probably patch debconf, or
web-driven interface), with a nice-UI, that would be run by an user whenever he
needs to change some settings on his account.

I think pam_session is intended to do that kind of things, but i haven't had
time to play with this yet.

I think this would be especially usefull on large networks where users are not
really Linux-friendly. I have set up xterms in my school, and students just log
in as netscape and get a netscape. I would like each user to get his own
account, but to get this working, I need to be able to make template-accounts
and replicate them (which is quite easy) but I will also need to make changes to
all users, which is really harder.
Something great would be to allow users to change their default window manager,
shell, password, ... using
a web interface, but I don't feel like writing a perl script clever enough to do
that. If we had a database, which replaced .bash_rc, .xsession, and password
command,  with fields descriptions it would be pretty easy to do.

We can't change the way every Linux programs handle user specific configuration,
but we could improve the way most-used parameters are handled.
Have you ever heard of something like that ? (I think debian developpers are
able to change their passwords on the web) Can you do more than passwords ?
Where can I learn more on it ?

What do you think ?

Thomas SARLANDIE
sarfata@altern.org