v1.0.30.0

Description

Vitalnix is a User Management Suite, complete with a user database framework and -capable tools, as well as CLIs (command line interfaces) for administrating users.

ACCDB is the Unified Account Database, which provides a unified API to all outside applications who wish to access the user database, be it Shadow (/etc/passwd), LDAP, or anything else. The back-ends in turn can do anything underneath it wishes or requires to, it is up to the back-end. ACCDB can even use multiple user databases simultaneously, if wanted.

It also comes with a tool, named C-spark. It is a tool for the mass (un)registration of users within the system user database, but also provides support for single users. It thus removes the need for adding each user manually.

Technical aspects

Vitalnix and the core parts of it are written in C, though certain parts of it can be done in C++ too, or even totally different languages (using C hooks of course) if the developer wants to it. It currently runs on the Linux 2.4.x operating system on x86 and x86_64 (AMD64). As far as expansion is concerned, the framework, C-Spark and most applications compile on Microsoft(R) 32-bit Windows(R) such as 95/98 using the MinGW32 compiler. Support for other OS (not Linux and not Windows) and/or platforms is now put back as a secondary target, as the most important are covered now. It may compile, but it does not work at the moment in certain spots (thus, everywhere) because of Microsoft's printf() implementation!

Current Trove Categorization: Perl Foundry, Database Foundry

Development Status:	4 - Beta, 5 - Produciton/Stable
Environment:	Console (Text Based), No Input/Output (Daemon), Win32 (MS Windows)
Intended Audience:	Developers, End Users/Desktop, Information Technology, System Administrators
License:	Frontier Artistic License, GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Library or Lesser Public License (LGPL)
Natural Language:	English
Operating System:	Linux, Windows 95/98/2000
Programming Language:	C, C++, Perl, Unix Shell, (Assembly)
Topic:	Database Engines/Servers, Front-Ends, Systems Administration

Future aim: problems

Obstacles in developing this software will be finding a good compromise between the features offered by the different user databases and providing them to the outside as a unified API, however this will be hardly a problem for UDBs which were natively written for Unix/etc.

The goal of Vitalnix is to replace getpwent() with something new, and especially, faster. Also, there is no getpwent() on Windows(R), so this framework just comes at the right time.

Contents: General

doc/setup.html

Installing and configuring Vitalnix

Contents: libaccdb - The Unified Account Database

doc/arch.html	Architecture of Vitalnix
doc/sysprog.html	ACCDB system utilities
doc/accdb_api.html	The Unified Account Database API
doc/backend_api.html	The back-end module API

Contents: Back-end modules' documentation

doc/backend_shadow.html	The Shadow back-end
doc/backend_slane.html	The SLANE back-end
doc/backend_mig.html	Migration service back-end
doc/backend_dummy.html	Dummy back-end

Contents: Spark UI

doc/spark_ui.html	SparkUI Readme
doc/sp_xmlds.html	Specifications for SparkUI XML input

Author and contributors

The original mass-enregistration Perl scripts were created by Eike Teiwes in 1997 (v0.7), 1998 (v0.8).
Jan Engelhardt had picked them up in fall 1999 keeping them up to date and is the current maintainer since then.

Jan Engelhardt <jengelh [at] linux01 gwdg de>
Current maintainer

Cordula Petzold <cordula.p [at] gmx de> [OHG Göttingen]
Data supplier

Cristoph Thiel <cthiel [at] linux01 gwdg de> [MPG Göttingen]
Main development testing trampoline ever since 2001.

Solar Designer <solar [at] openwall com>
I included his Blowfish algorithm in Vitalnix, so he deserves to be listed here.

A/C of past versions (Daxtraq < v1.70, < September 2003)

Ernst-Eike Teiwes <eteiwes [at] ohg goe net> [OHG Göttingen]
Initial developer

Hans-Joachim Bauermeister <acb [at] kki org> [BBS-2 Göttingen]

Ludger Inhester <linhest [at] linux01 gwdg de> [THG Göttingen]
Somehow got the source (v0.7) and added to it.

[BBS Göttingen]

Markus Boie, ???
Somehow got the (original, v0.7) source and added to it, too.

... looks like ... just about everyone in town :-)

May 04 2004 http://vitalnix.sf.net/