uid administration

[Fuat C. Baran]

Here at Columbia University we currently have a locally written id
system.  All the information associated with a user is kept in an
Ingres (RTI) database.  Programs such as passwd, chfn, chsh, etc. are
local versions that start up an Ingres backend (directly on the server
host, and via pseudo-ttys on clients).  Ingres runs on a "server" host
and the changes are propagated to all "client" machines.

The current implementation has several shortcomings so it is in the
process of being rewritten from scratch.  The new system will have an
Ingres database, and several ISODE applications (e.g. the database
manager which talks to the Ingres backend will be an isode responder).
We are also implementing "reliable queueing" so that clients don't all
have to be up at the same time (problem with the current
implementation).

The new system organizes hosts into clusters.  Also there is the
concept of a "person" which can have several users on one or more
clusters.  The id system will be tied in to the student registration
system as well as the personnel database.  White-pages services as
well as university-wide mail aliases (e.g.
FirstName_LastName at columbia.edu or anything else unique and
reasonable) are going to be implemented.

/etc/group is also maintained in Ingres, and /usr/lib/aliases will be
too (the current system just adds entries for users, but doesn't
maintain the whole database).

Not part of the ID system, but hostname/address administration for
named is also done with Ingres.


							--Fuat
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