Wild-eyed thinking aloud: Python System Management Infrastructure

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <slrn9n5t3n.fmo.quinn at retch.ugcs.caltech.edu>,
Quinn Dunkan <quinn at retch.ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>On 7 Aug 2001 09:26:54 -0700, Aahz Maruch <aahz at panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <jtg0b5guox.fsf at wazor.biostat.wisc.edu>,
>>William Annis  <annis at biostat.wisc.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>        I was with you up to the web interface.  I don't know about
>>>you, but *this* sysadmin breaks out in hives at the idea of putting
>>>system control and configuration behind a web server... by definition
>>>a public service.
>>
>>On the gut level, I kind of agree with you.  But let's walk through
>>this, shall we?  What, really, is the difference between a telnet
>>session and a web session?
>
>Security:  I can install and use ssh easily.  For http, I'm not so
>sure.  It's probably pretty easy if you know what you're doing, but I
>recall all sorts of stuff about apache patches, httpd.conf changes,
>certificate authorities, authentication realms, etc.

There's some truth to that, yes.

>Complexity:  With an ssh link you can use plain text.  Over http you
>have to use complicated html and use some giant bloated browser to see
>it.  I use systems that have no web browser, but do have ssh.  And a
>web thing is going to have some complicated nest of cgi scripts that
>will wind up doing the same stuff you can do directly with a shell.

The flip side is that if you actually want a UI, using HTML and a
browser is the simplest way of doing that.  Also, it doesn't need to be
either/or with ssh vs. HTML; you could ssh in and use Lynx, which is
hardly a bloated browser.

>Debugging:  I hate debugging web stuff.

Yup.

>Speed:  Web forms are slow and clumsy.

Not under Lynx.  ;-)  People are sometimes amazed at just how quickly I
can fill out a web form.

>And most importantly, what would a web interface give you?  It just
>seems like a slower, more complicated and awkward way to solve the same
>problems.  It's like using a complicated remote-control robot to clean
>your room instead of just walking in and picking stuff up.  Or, since
>this is a hypothetical management system, using a remote control robot
>to manipulate a a control panel to manipulate a herd of remote control
>robots to clean a bunch of rooms.

Let's say you're creating new user accounts, and there's a list of ten
boolean options that are standard (e.g. does this user get sudo
access?).  Presenting a list of checkboxes in HTML is much easier to
manage on the UI side than just about any other method.
-- 
                      --- Aahz  <*>  (Copyright 2001 by aahz at pobox.com)

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