Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] My ISP

[Chris Weiss]

Bob Crandell (address@hidden) wrote:
> Chris Weiss (address@hidden) wrote:
> >Bob Crandell (address@hidden) wrote:
> >> Adding users with the phpGroupWare interface should add a Linux user.  
> >> Deleting a
> >> user should have the _option_ of deleting that user's home directory.  I 
> >> seem to
> >> have a vague recollection of someone asking about this in the distant past.
> >
> >This is a whole lot harder than it sounds, but I have a working add-on in the
> >shadows which does exactly this.  I'll tidy it up as soon as I finish an
> >unrelated project and put it in CVS.
> This admin is a Windows kind of guy.  The fewer interfaces he has to deal 
> with the
> less confused he'll be.
> Adding a Linux user is working in Webmin.  I'm glad your's is close to 
> working too.
>  I'm planning on implimenting LDAP but neither phpGroupWare nor I am ready 
> for that yet.
>
webmin is different because it's is it's own web server and runs as root,
phpgw runs under apache and runs as a user with almost no permissions at all
on the system.  You cannot do anything to unix users at all with a normal
php-apache install.

My implementation uses a php shell script running firewalled and via xinetd as
root and a set of hooks in phpgw that talk to this "daemon" shell script to
modify unix users.  It's not close it working, it does work and is being used
on 2 production server so far.  It's just not ready for public release.  It
also needs some peer review for security, I need a little more anti-hacking
code and probably some stuff added that's beyond my knowledge.  Right now I'm
heavily relying on firewalls for security.