System administration

[D_AGC%vaxa.nerc-keyworth.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk]

(This  request  for  help  has  already  been sent to Unix-Wizards. My
apologies if you're seeing it for the second time.)

I'm looking for one or more utilities which could be used to provide a
limited  and  well  controlled system administration environment for a
generic unix system. The intention is that these could be  used  by  a
designated  user  (or  users)  to create (maybe delete) user accounts,
initiate file-sys saves and restores,  and  other  system  admin  type
stuff without requiring that anyone log on as superuser because (where
necessary) the software would setuid superuser.
 
The  sys  admin  environment  would  be  used by a trusted user of the
system who would need to be both protected from the  system  and  from
whom  the  system  would need to be protected. It would not have to be
all embracing, merely to cover the more common requirements,  such  as
those  just  mentioned,  as anything more demanding would be done by a
member of the computer services staff.
 
Can  anybody  point  me to a source of such a collection of software ?
Public domain source is acceptable, as it would be nice  to  have  the
same  environment  on  a  number  of  different  vendors' systems, but
commercial packages are also of interest.
 
Many thanks to those who respond.
 
Alan Cox, Natural Environment Research Council, UK
 
P.S.  As  I  don't  subscribe to Info-Unix please direct replies to my
mailbox, rather than to the list.
 
d_agc at uk.ac.nkw.va                          JANET
d_agc at va.nkw.ac.uk                          rest of the world, or
d_agc%va.nkw.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk         ARPA
d_agc%uk.ac.nkw.va at ukacrl                   EARN/BITNET/NETNORTH
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