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From: jsno@stormfront.com.au (Jason Nunn)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,aus.computers.linux,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Suggestions list for Clobberd 3.x
Date: 11 Jan 97 14:54:10 GMT
Organization: Telstra Internet
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Hello,
I'm winding up to start work on Clobberd 3.x. Many MANY people have
suggested improvements for Clobberd 2.4, so many it's become hard to keep
track of them all.
I've listed the ones i have as follows. Some of them conflict with each
other. I'm hoping that we can come up with an agreed set of changes.
I've forgotten which suggestions belong to who. If any of you are reading
this, please remind me of who owns what ;).
If you've never heard of "Clobberd" before and are interested, you can go
to my home page:
http://stormfront.com.au/~jsno/
Also NB that i've had many requests to port Clobberd 2.4 (which is
currently implemented for Linux) to SunOS, Sun Solaris and FreeBSD. If i had
a sun sitting next to me, i would do it myself. As i don't (our line is slow
here), i'm going to have to ask somebody to port 3.x for me. Any takers?.
See ya
:Jason Nunn
====================================================================
* - logging file separattly e.g /var/adm/clobberd.log
NB/ you can make syslog more pedant by splitting log files to log
according to type: ie daemon, user etc. Do a man "syslog.conf" for more
info.
* - default settings for nonsubscribed users
An excellent idea.
Clobberd 2.4 will only monitor a given user when you subscribe it (ie run
clobberedit and actually add the user).
Having "default settings" will enable you to monitor users who are not
subscribed - handy for services like Ozemail that have automatic account
creation.
* - implement idle support (if you do that then idled package would be
totally unusafule
This feature will simply clobber the users if idle for longer than a
specified time.
This would have to be optional, as it may annoy some users and Operators..
A BBS i was using for years had this feature, and i found it extremely
annoying. I personally think you will get users putting their fists
through their monitors if this feature is implemented, particularly with
say ftp transfers where the user doesn't touch their keyboard etc.
and as you said, the "wheel has already been invented", so i guess this
suggestion is off the slate.
* - both text file configuration and clobberedit config.
Is there any chance you would consider going back to a /etc/*.conf file
and abandoning the clobberedit things? I have more than 750 users on my
system and I really dont like to set things up for each user individually.
Clobberd 1.1 would read a text file (/etc/clobberd.conf) with user details
in it. Some people liked this, most people didn't. So in 2.4, i released
an editor called 'clobberedit'.
It looks like 3.x should have both a text file configuration and an
interface?. But how am i doing to implement this without making it
completely confusing?.
* - It would be nice to be able to easily change the text sent to a user
in their log-off message,
if you go it into options.h file, you can.
* - and it would be great to be able to have the total number of hours
ignored if there was (for instance) a negative number in there.
In 2.4, you can exempt a user from a monitoring by hitting 'E' (Shift-E).
Read the funky manual for more info ;).
> Also, how about an account expiry date?
So it kicks them off after a certain date?. Yep, ok, it's in.
* - I had another idea for clobberd last night... how about a utility that
could be run at log-in time for each user, which would give them some
stats, and more importantly, log them off immediately if they have
already used all their time?
Why not just put a "telnet localhost 6669" in the /etc/profile script?.
That will display there stats at login.
Clobberd will kick them off immediately when there time runs out. Writing
a utility to do this would be doubling up on code.
* - I guess the same utility could advise them how many days their account
has before it runs out, too?
If you do a "telnet localhost 6669" (or whatever you have set the
daemon's listening port at), it will provide you with a list of stats for
that user.
* - Displaying on stats (when you do a "telnet address.com" 6669) displays
all users. Can you make it so that it only displays stats of the one
user?.
In Clobberd 1.1, it would query port 113 of the client host to determine
who owned the connection (port 113 is identd daemon). Clobberd 1.1 allowed
the root to telnet in and perform maintenance, like reseting users access,
giving a user more time etc.
Unfortunately. identd is open to attacks, and identd can't be relied upon.
querying an Identd daemon at the other end is the only way i know of being
able to find out who owns a socket (i guess you could find out by
looking at ports 11 and 15, but that's very complicated), and since this
is open to attacks, clobberd can't know which of it's entries are you
by your socket id..
Pity that really. That's the problem with a hack network like TCP/IP i
guess (not that hack networks are bad, they are just poorly contingent
proof).
--
Jason Nunn,Darwin,Northern Territory,Australia
"proceed with confidence"