gecco
README
2000/03/30
CONTENTS
AUTHORS Program author information COPYING Copyright information CREDITS Credits for code design and development ChangeLog Description of new changes in each revision INSTALL Installation instructions NEWS Updates about the development of gecco PLUGIN-HOWTO A HOW-TO for writing gecco plugins README This file TODO Planned additions/alterations
REQUIREMENTS
- libgnomeui32
DESCRIPTION
The goal of gecco (GNOME Extensible Configuration COnsole) is to provide a central location for accessing system administration functions within the GNOME environment.
There are currently many configuration tools already in existance, with more to come. Most of these, however, are for small and relatively minor tasks and do not need to be stand-alone applications. The fact that these tasks are, in reality, being addressed by separate applications makes for a more difficult time in managing configuration tools than there needs to be.
gecco addresses this issue by providing a common location for the configuration 'loose-ends' through the use of plugins. Plugins are, in effect, regular GNOME applications that employ a pair of functions to interface with gecco. This simple approach means that writing new plugins is almost identical to normal GNOME development, with the addition of two functions. Moreover, because of the simplicity of design, existing applications are quite easily modified to implement the gecco API (see PLUGIN-HOWTO for details on writing plugins).
The plugins (which typically exist in /usr/share/gecco/plugins), are read on startup and presented as icons within gecco. They are invoked by the standard means of double-clicking or the use of menu items.
gecco's plugins do not otherwise have any interaction either among themselves or with gecco itself.
RUNNING GECCO AS ROOT
gecco installs SUID root, but downgrades privileges depending on whether the user is listed in the privileged users file (typically /etc/gecco/geccousers), which is installed to be accessable only to root. This allows every user to to make use of gecco while ensuring that only authorized users are able to perform privileged functions.
gecco has a utility for configuring the user list, located under the 'Settings' menu, however the file can be edited by hand just as easily.
This method of determining user privileges was selected to remove the need for users to know the root password, while allowing certain users to perform privileged functions.
PLUGINS
As mentioned, gecco depends on plugins for it's functionality. The following is a list of plugins needed; comments, suggestions and of course, plugins, are always appreciated.
- cron
- dhcpcd
- fstab
- inetd/tcp wrappers
- inittab
- ipchains (packet filtering, masquerading, port forwarding, and
accounting)
- libraries (eg. ld.so.conf)
- lilo
- pppd
- printers
- run levels
- /etc/shells and shell profiles
- syslog
- system greetings (eg. issue, issue.net, motd)
- various services (eg. bind, Sendmail, Apache, FTP daemons, dhcpd,
ssh/sshd, wine, etc. )
CAVEATS
While gecco was designed on and for a GNU/Linux system, it should compile cleanly on other Unixes, although this hasn't been tested. The plugins, however, may be platform specific; this will have to be investigated for each plugin.
VERSIONING
gecoo follows the Linux versioning standard; MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO, where even MINOR versions are stable releases, and odd MINOR versions are development, unstable releases.
CONTACT
Please feel free to contact "viv@inforamp.net" with any comments, suggestions, bug fixes, and criticism.
COPYRIGHT
gecco is copyright 1999-2000 by John Vivian. It is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, see the file COPYING in the source distribution for details.