webadmin-devel — The webmin development mailing list

Re: More secure 'passwd' module?

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

Scott MacKay wrote:
> 
> Hiyas,
>     Is there a more secure version of the password
> change module?  I am workin on restricting it down
> (disallow you to change root password, only change
> password of unlocked users or those with a specific
> '*expired*' keyword), and noticed that the security
> checks are not too tight.  Namely, save_passwd.cgi
> does not seem to do the same validation for password
> change rights as the other modules.

You can configure some of those access controls
already in the password change module, by going into
the Webmin Users module and clicking on 'Change Passwords'
next to the name of a user. If there are any access
control restrictions that you would like that are
currently missing, tell me and it should be possible
to add them.

 - Jamie

More secure 'passwd' module?

[Scott M. <sco...@ya...>]

Hiyas,
    Is there a more secure version of the password
change module?  I am workin on restricting it down
(disallow you to change root password, only change
password of unlocked users or those with a specific
'*expired*' keyword), and noticed that the security
checks are not too tight.  Namely, save_passwd.cgi
does not seem to do the same validation for password
change rights as the other modules.

-Scott

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

Re: Detecting the client machine

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

"Garrison, Mark" wrote:
> 
> I'm writing a module in which I'd like to provide different services based
> upon whether the user is running his browser on the server (locally) or on a
> client (remotely).  Can I detect this within webmin?

The easiest way would be to check the $ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'} environment variable
and compare it with the the IP address of your server, which you can probably
get with  &to_ipaddress(&get_system_hostname()) . Also, compare it with
127.0.0.1 to check for a localhost connection ..

  - Jamie

Detecting the client machine

[Garrison, M. <Mar...@pb...>]

I'm writing a module in which I'd like to provide different services based
upon whether the user is running his browser on the server (locally) or on a
client (remotely).  Can I detect this within webmin?

And now this list is archived and searchable.

[Joe C. <jo...@sw...>]

Hi all,

The Webmin-devel list has been imported and added to the search engine 
database.

It is here:

http://www.swelltech.com/mailman/listinfo/webmin-devel-archive

The two lists are mutually exclusive when searching, for the time being. 
  I plan to create an advanced search page that will allow searching all 
lists.  I will probably also include an "All-Webmin" search option, 
wherein folks can search both lists and the Webmin book at once, but 
nothing else at our site.  Might be useful for some.

Enjoy.
-- 
Joe Cooper <jo...@sw...>
Web caching appliances and support.
http://www.swelltech.com

Re: Bug in useradmin module?

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

ra...@si... wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 24 May 2002, Jamie Cameron wrote:
> 
> > ra...@si... wrote:
> > >
> > >   I found out recently that regular expressions while searching for users
> > > stopped functioning.  This apparently is due to the "\Q" and "\E"
> > > directives for the matching expression.  I don't recall these directives
> > > for regular expressions, and they prevent any regexp matching.  Is this a
> > > bug in the module, or do I need to upgrade my PERL and PERL knowlege?
> >
> > It's sort of a feature in webmin 0.970. I previous versions, doing searches
> > for usernames like  joe+fred  would not produce the results that people
> > unfamiliar with regular expressions expected. That's why I put in the \Q
> > and \E to make the username search field a substring rather than a
> > regular expression.
> >
> >  - Jamie
> >
> 
>   I applaud any feature that makes things work better (the fact that I
> continue to applaud Webmin should speak for that).  Unfortunately, on my
> Solaris 8 system running 0.970, it doesn't find "randyf+root", nor will it
> produce the list of all users whose names begin with r (^r).  The
> "matches" argument will only match items where all the characters in the
> what string appropriately match the field (though this may not be a bug,
> I personally think the RE approach is better).
> 
>   Of course, maybe the right answer here is to either enhance the search
> capabilities, or include a "Search by RE" button.  In fact, I think that
> is the fix that I will apply (interested in the patch code?).

Nice idea .. in the next release, I will have options for 'matches' and
'contains' to use when searching for users. What way people who don't
understand regexps can use the 'contains' option, and experts can search
by regexp :)

 - Jamie

Re: Bug in useradmin module?

[<ra...@si...>]

On Fri, 24 May 2002, Jamie Cameron wrote:

> ra...@si... wrote:
> >
> >   I found out recently that regular expressions while searching for users
> > stopped functioning.  This apparently is due to the "\Q" and "\E"
> > directives for the matching expression.  I don't recall these directives
> > for regular expressions, and they prevent any regexp matching.  Is this a
> > bug in the module, or do I need to upgrade my PERL and PERL knowlege?
>
> It's sort of a feature in webmin 0.970. I previous versions, doing searches
> for usernames like  joe+fred  would not produce the results that people
> unfamiliar with regular expressions expected. That's why I put in the \Q
> and \E to make the username search field a substring rather than a
> regular expression.
>
>  - Jamie
>


  I applaud any feature that makes things work better (the fact that I
continue to applaud Webmin should speak for that).  Unfortunately, on my
Solaris 8 system running 0.970, it doesn't find "randyf+root", nor will it
produce the list of all users whose names begin with r (^r).  The
"matches" argument will only match items where all the characters in the
what string appropriately match the field (though this may not be a bug,
I personally think the RE approach is better).

  Of course, maybe the right answer here is to either enhance the search
capabilities, or include a "Search by RE" button.  In fact, I think that
is the fix that I will apply (interested in the patch code?).

  BTW, one of the reasons that I so much like Webmin, is because if I
would prefer behavior to be a little different, I can "make it so".


rf

Re: Bug in useradmin module?

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

ra...@si... wrote:
> 
>   I found out recently that regular expressions while searching for users
> stopped functioning.  This apparently is due to the "\Q" and "\E"
> directives for the matching expression.  I don't recall these directives
> for regular expressions, and they prevent any regexp matching.  Is this a
> bug in the module, or do I need to upgrade my PERL and PERL knowlege?

It's sort of a feature in webmin 0.970. I previous versions, doing searches
for usernames like  joe+fred  would not produce the results that people
unfamiliar with regular expressions expected. That's why I put in the \Q
and \E to make the username search field a substring rather than a
regular expression.

 - Jamie

Bug in useradmin module?

[<ra...@si...>]

  I found out recently that regular expressions while searching for users
stopped functioning.  This apparently is due to the "\Q" and "\E"
directives for the matching expression.  I don't recall these directives
for regular expressions, and they prevent any regexp matching.  Is this a
bug in the module, or do I need to upgrade my PERL and PERL knowlege?


rf

Re: New module install problems

[Joe C. <jo...@sw...>]

John Lodge wrote:
> Joe Cooper wrote:
> 
>>Does the module untar into a 'shorewall' directory?  It sounds like
>>images is a toplevel directory in your tarball, perhaps, with all the
>>other stuff being outside of a directory.  Just a guess...

> Joe,
> 
> Thanks for the reply
> 
> The tarball consists of all the normal perl stuff, an images directory ,
> a lang directory and a help directory.
> Addtitionally the tarball consists of a config, config.info and a
> module.info at the top level.
> 
> This I understood was the proper shape for a webmin module tarball.

I meant is all of this stuff in its own directory called shorewall?

For example, one of my modules untars like this:

squidreports/
squidreports/config.info
squidreports/config
squidreports/images/
squidreports/images/icon.gif
squidreports/lang/
squidreports/lang/en
squidreports/config-redhat-linux
squidreports/reports-lib.pl
squidreports/index.cgi
squidreports/module.info
squidreports/reportview.cgi
squidreports/calamaris.cron
squidreports/help/
squidreports/help/reports.html

Notice everything goes under the squidreports subdirectory when 
untarring.  Your problem looks like it might be due to everything being 
'loose', like so:

config.info
config
images/
images/icon.gif
lang/
lang/en
config-redhat-linux
reports-lib.pl
index.cgi
module.info
reportview.cgi
calamaris.cron
help/
help/reports.html

This won't work.

Again, I'm guessing, but that's what it looks like from here.
-- 
Joe Cooper <jo...@sw...>
http://www.swelltech.com
Web Caching Appliances and Support

Re: New module install problems

[John L. <jo...@pc...>]

Joe Cooper wrote:
> 
> Does the module untar into a 'shorewall' directory?  It sounds like
> images is a toplevel directory in your tarball, perhaps, with all the
> other stuff being outside of a directory.  Just a guess...
> 
> John Lodge wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am developing a new webmin module for the Shorewall firewall.
> >
> > All seems to be going well except that the module will not install
> > properly through
> > the webmin module installer.
> >
> > I get the following error message
> >
> > Failed to install module from /tmp/shorewall.wbm : Module images is
> > missing a module.info file
> >
> > Why does it think the images directory is a seperatr module. Or at least
> > that is what I
> > think the error message is teling me. I have looked at the code od the
> > installer and
> > cannot see what is causing it to not like this module.
> >
> > Can anyone assist please
> >
> > John Lodge
> > jo...@pc...
> 
> --
> Joe Cooper <jo...@sw...>
> http://www.swelltech.com
> Web Caching Appliances and Support
Joe,

Thanks for the reply

The tarball consists of all the normal perl stuff, an images directory ,
a lang directory and a help directory.
Addtitionally the tarball consists of a config, config.info and a
module.info at the top level.

This I understood was the proper shape for a webmin module tarball.

Re: New module install problems

[Joe C. <jo...@sw...>]

Does the module untar into a 'shorewall' directory?  It sounds like 
images is a toplevel directory in your tarball, perhaps, with all the 
other stuff being outside of a directory.  Just a guess...

John Lodge wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am developing a new webmin module for the Shorewall firewall. 
> 
> All seems to be going well except that the module will not install
> properly through
> the webmin module installer.
> 
> I get the following error message
> 
> Failed to install module from /tmp/shorewall.wbm : Module images is
> missing a module.info file 
> 
> Why does it think the images directory is a seperatr module. Or at least
> that is what I
> think the error message is teling me. I have looked at the code od the
> installer and
> cannot see what is causing it to not like this module.
> 
> Can anyone assist please
> 
> John Lodge
> jo...@pc...

-- 
Joe Cooper <jo...@sw...>
http://www.swelltech.com
Web Caching Appliances and Support

New module install problems

[John L. <jo...@pc...>]

Hello,

I am developing a new webmin module for the Shorewall firewall. 

All seems to be going well except that the module will not install
properly through
the webmin module installer.

I get the following error message

Failed to install module from /tmp/shorewall.wbm : Module images is
missing a module.info file 

Why does it think the images directory is a seperatr module. Or at least
that is what I
think the error message is teling me. I have looked at the code od the
installer and
cannot see what is causing it to not like this module.

Can anyone assist please

John Lodge
jo...@pc...

AIX 4.2

[Osvaldo S. <osa...@dg...>]

Quisiera saber si webmin soporta versiones 4.2 de AIX.

Gracias

Re: file manager download

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

Daniel Wittenberg wrote:
> 
> Is there any interest in adding an icon called 'download' to force the
> download of documents, instead of letting the browser handle them?  I am
> mainly interested in getting this feature into usermin, but think it
> would be handy for both projects.  I know nothing about Java or I'd be
> willing to help code it :(

Co-incidentally, I have just added this exact feature. You can see it if
you get the latest file manager update from http://www.webmin.com/updates.html

Of course, you can already do the same thing by shift-double-clicking
on a file.

 - Jamie

file manager download

[Daniel W. <dan...@st...>]

Is there any interest in adding an icon called 'download' to force the
download of documents, instead of letting the browser handle them?  I am
mainly interested in getting this feature into usermin, but think it
would be handy for both projects.  I know nothing about Java or I'd be
willing to help code it :(

Dan

Re: webadmin-devel digest, Vol 1 #146 - 1 msg

[Klaus S. <Kla...@Ph...>]

Jamie Cameron wrote:

> Thanks for that info - I installed mke3fs separately, not realizing
> that the mkfs.ext2 command could do the job as well! In the next
> webmin release the code will run  mkfs.ext2 -h  and check for the -j flag
> to figure out if ext3 is supported or not ..
I think that's a good solution.

Sincerly,
Klaus



-- 
Klaus Steinberger               Beschleunigerlabor der TU und LMU Muenchen
Phone: (+49 89)289 14287        Hochschulgelaende, D-85748 Garching, Germany
FAX:   (+49 89)289 14280        EMail: 
Kla...@Ph...
URL: http://www.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~k2/

In a world without fences and walls, who needs Windows and Gates?

Re: webadmin-devel digest, Vol 1 #146 - 1 msg

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

Klaus Steinberger wrote:
> 
> > Also, a beta version of the next Webmin release is available at
> >
> > http://www.webmin.com/devel/tarballs/webmin-0.955.tar.gz
> > or
> > http://www.webmin.com/devel/rpm/webmin-0.955-1.noarch.rpm
> >
> > This includes a new LVM module, as well as some fairly major changes
> > to the way foreign function calls work in order to speed up the modules
> > that use them. If anyone finds any bugs in the new code, please tell me
> > about them before the next official release :-)
> 
> That's great!
> 
> A little bug I found: On Redhat 7.2 Systems the LVM Module does not
> offer to create etx3 filesystems. Lurking through the code, I found
> that lvm module looks for the existence of mkfs.ext3 or mke3fs,
> which both do not exist on RH 7.2 (or probably any newer ext3 capable
> system).
> 
> On RH7.2 or probably also other ext3 capable systems the creation of
> ext3 filesystems is done through the ext2 mkfs programs, just with
> addition of "-j" Switch. Probably we have to look for version
> information of mke2fs? But starting with which version does it support ext3?
> 
> Or we should scan /proc/filesystems for available filesystem types,
> but this has also an pitfall, a filesystem type for an not yet loaded
> fs module is not shown.

Thanks for that info - I installed mke3fs separately, not realizing
that the mkfs.ext2 command could do the job as well! In the next
webmin release the code will run  mkfs.ext2 -h  and check for the -j flag
to figure out if ext3 is supported or not ..

 - Jamie

Re: webadmin-devel digest, Vol 1 #146 - 1 msg

[Klaus S. <Kla...@Ph...>]

> Also, a beta version of the next Webmin release is available at
> 
> http://www.webmin.com/devel/tarballs/webmin-0.955.tar.gz
> or
> http://www.webmin.com/devel/rpm/webmin-0.955-1.noarch.rpm
> 
> This includes a new LVM module, as well as some fairly major changes
> to the way foreign function calls work in order to speed up the modules
> that use them. If anyone finds any bugs in the new code, please tell me
> about them before the next official release :-)

That's great!

A little bug I found: On Redhat 7.2 Systems the LVM Module does not 
offer to create etx3 filesystems. Lurking through the code, I found
that lvm module looks for the existence of mkfs.ext3 or mke3fs,
which both do not exist on RH 7.2 (or probably any newer ext3 capable
system).

On RH7.2 or probably also other ext3 capable systems the creation of
ext3 filesystems is done through the ext2 mkfs programs, just with
addition of "-j" Switch. Probably we have to look for version 
information of mke2fs? But starting with which version does it support ext3?

Or we should scan /proc/filesystems for available filesystem types,
but this has also an pitfall, a filesystem type for an not yet loaded
fs module is not shown.

Sincerly,
Klaus Steinberger

-- 
Klaus Steinberger               Beschleunigerlabor der TU und LMU Muenchen
Phone: (+49 89)289 14287        Hochschulgelaende, D-85748 Garching, Germany
FAX:   (+49 89)289 14280        EMail: 
Kla...@Ph...
URL: http://www.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~k2/

In a world without fences and walls, who needs Windows and Gates?

Module-writers guide updated

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

Hi all,

For those developing their own Webmin or Usermin modules, I have
updated the module-writers guide at

http://www.webmin.com/modules.html

with documentation on all the new functions since release 0.91,
as well as instructions for writing Usermin modules. 

Also, a beta version of the next Webmin release is available at

http://www.webmin.com/devel/tarballs/webmin-0.955.tar.gz
or
http://www.webmin.com/devel/rpm/webmin-0.955-1.noarch.rpm

This includes a new LVM module, as well as some fairly major changes
to the way foreign function calls work in order to speed up the modules
that use them. If anyone finds any bugs in the new code, please tell me
about them before the next official release :-)

 - Jamie

Re: Webmin RPC

[Wil C. <wc...@na...>]

Also Sprach Jamie Cameron <jca...@we...> on Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 09:=
26:06PM PST
>=20
> That's a good solution .. as long as callers are willing to
> convert all structures into this format, then I can't see any
> problems with it.  What someone needs to do is write a gateway
> of some kind between webmin-RPC and XML-RPC .. or even add
> XML-RPC support directly to webmin. I wouldn't want to get rid
> of the existing RPC right away, in order to preserve backwards
> compatibility, but there is no reason why they both cannot
> exist side-by-side.

Well, that's the thing--they don't have to; the conversions can be
made within the remote_foreign_* calls and be done transparently
to the modules.  I'm sorta interested in this issue, and if my
schedule allows it, I'll take a hack it at.

> What kind of network transport does XML-RPC use? Does it make
> an HTTP connection for each function call, or use some other
> special protocol?

It uses HTTP to transfer the XML back and forth; it's a lot like
SOAP AFAICT.  I need to read up on it a bit.

Wil
--=20
W. Reilly Cooley                           wc...@na...
Naked Ape Consulting                        http://nakedape.cc
irc.linux.com                                     #orlug,#lnxs

"There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearence; he somehow
seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an
actor, and clad in immaculate linen."
-- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan

Re: Webmin RPC

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

Wil Cooley wrote:
> 
> Also Sprach Jamie Cameron <jca...@we...> on Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 05:39:14PM PST
> > The need for extra modules is part of the reason for not using XML-RPC,
> > but another is that (as far as I know) it doesn't support the passing
> > of complex structures as parameters or return values. Because many of
> > the remote webmin functions pass or return arrays and hashes, the lack
> > of structures really rules out XML-RPC, which only supports simple
> > types like strings and numbers.
> >
> > Correct me if I am wrong about this though, because it probably wouldn't
> > be too hard to add some kind of gateway between XML-RPC and Webmin RPC
> > if they both have the same capabilities ..
> 
> I've been thinking more about this, and the complex
> datastructures should pose no problem.  I did a little
> looking around my Perl installation (including CPAN modules
> RH shipped) and found XML::Dumper, which will take a Perl
> structure and output XML.  Here's an example from the man
> page:
> 
> #!/usr/bin/perl
> 
> # Convert Perl code to XML
> use XML::Dumper;
> my $dump = new XML::Dumper;
> $data = [
>           {
>             first => 'Jonathan',
>             last => 'Eisenzopf',
>             email => 'ei...@po...'
>           },
>           {
>             first => 'Larry',
>             last => 'Wall',
>             email => ' la...@wa...'
>           }
>          ];
> $xml = $dump->pl2xml($data);
> 
> print $xml, "\n" ;
> 
> # EOF
> 
> Which produces:
> 
> <perldata>
>  <array>
>   <item key="0">
>    <hash>
>     <item key="last">Eisenzopf</item>
>     <item key="first">Jonathan</item>
>     <item key="email">ei...@po...</item>
>    </hash>
>   </item>
>   <item key="1">
>    <hash>
>     <item key="last">Wall</item>
>     <item key="first">Larry</item>
>     <item key="email"> la...@wa...</item>
>    </hash>
>   </item>
>  </array>
> </perldata>
> 
> Violá!

That's a good solution .. as long as callers are willing to
convert all structures into this format, then I can't see any
problems with it.  What someone needs to do is write a gateway
of some kind between webmin-RPC and XML-RPC .. or even add
XML-RPC support directly to webmin. I wouldn't want to get rid
of the existing RPC right away, in order to preserve backwards
compatibility, but there is no reason why they both cannot
exist side-by-side.

What kind of network transport does XML-RPC use? Does it make
an HTTP connection for each function call, or use some other
special protocol?

 - Jamie

Re: Webmin RPC

[Wil C. <wc...@na...>]

Also Sprach Jamie Cameron <jca...@we...> on Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 05:=
39:14PM PST
> The need for extra modules is part of the reason for not using XML-RPC,
> but another is that (as far as I know) it doesn't support the passing
> of complex structures as parameters or return values. Because many of
> the remote webmin functions pass or return arrays and hashes, the lack
> of structures really rules out XML-RPC, which only supports simple
> types like strings and numbers.
>=20
> Correct me if I am wrong about this though, because it probably wouldn't
> be too hard to add some kind of gateway between XML-RPC and Webmin RPC
> if they both have the same capabilities ..

I've been thinking more about this, and the complex
datastructures should pose no problem.  I did a little
looking around my Perl installation (including CPAN modules
RH shipped) and found XML::Dumper, which will take a Perl
structure and output XML.  Here's an example from the man
page:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Convert Perl code to XML
use XML::Dumper;
my $dump =3D new XML::Dumper;
$data =3D [
          {
            first =3D> 'Jonathan',
            last =3D> 'Eisenzopf',
            email =3D> 'ei...@po...'
          },
          {
            first =3D> 'Larry',
            last =3D> 'Wall',
            email =3D> ' la...@wa...'
          }
         ];
$xml =3D $dump->pl2xml($data);

print $xml, "\n" ;

# EOF

Which produces:

<perldata>
 <array>
  <item key=3D"0">
   <hash>
    <item key=3D"last">Eisenzopf</item>
    <item key=3D"first">Jonathan</item>
    <item key=3D"email">ei...@po...</item>
   </hash>
  </item>
  <item key=3D"1">
   <hash>
    <item key=3D"last">Wall</item>
    <item key=3D"first">Larry</item>
    <item key=3D"email"> la...@wa...</item>
   </hash>
  </item>
 </array>
</perldata>


Viol=E1!

Wil
--=20
W. Reilly Cooley                           wc...@na...
Naked Ape Consulting                        http://nakedape.cc
irc.linux.com                                     #orlug,#lnxs

"There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearence; he somehow
seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an
actor, and clad in immaculate linen."
-- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan

[ PATCH ] miniserv.pl cookie handling

[<Br...@ba...>]

Hi,
This patch (diff -u)  allows you to set more than one cookie. Only tested 
on RedHat 7.2 and perl 5.6.1
Greets, Bram.

Re: Webmin RPC

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

The need for extra modules is part of the reason for not using XML-RPC,
but another is that (as far as I know) it doesn't support the passing
of complex structures as parameters or return values. Because many of
the remote webmin functions pass or return arrays and hashes, the lack
of structures really rules out XML-RPC, which only supports simple
types like strings and numbers.

Correct me if I am wrong about this though, because it probably wouldn't
be too hard to add some kind of gateway between XML-RPC and Webmin RPC
if they both have the same capabilities ..

 - Jamie

Joe Cooper wrote:
> 
> The two pence version:
> 
> I am of two minds on things like this.  On one hand, using standardized
> and heavier protocols (heavier merely in the sense of the implementation
> of the protocol--not necessarily that the communications are heavier or
> more taxing on the network or the machines) leads to Webmin being less
> 'standalone'.  It will need other perl modules--against the Webmin
> rules, generally.  On the other hand, it would allow integration of
> Webmin with things that may not be 'Webmin-ified'...and potentially
> leverage existing development efforts in Webmin into less redundant
> efforts.  Modules save time--I use them all the time in my perl
> programming and I really couldn't be very productive without them (I'm a
> rank amateur at many complex Perl topics).
> 
> The longer version:
> 
> I am constanty torn between this dichotomy in general--not just the
> specific RPC case.  The problem of, balancing code reuse with Webmin
> usability.  If Webmin used a standard web template system (TT2, etc.)
> the GUI could break free of the constraints of the current
> half-templated and half-hardcoded system, but then everyone has to
> install TT2 before using Webmin.  Integration is difficult if not
> impossible, and that extra labor takes away a primary motivation for
> code reuse (i.e. saving Jamie from having to spend time developing a
> template system or an RPC system or whatever).
> 
> The negatives (the primary one being, everyone has to install a bunch of
> extra perl modules) don't bother me in the least.  Me and cpanflute got
> this deal going--anything from CPAN that I can build without any hassle
> I can make a package that goes into my default system kickstart install
> in a matter of minutes.  Maybe this isn't a deal casual users are
> willing to make.  So I would happily encourage Jamie to make Webmin less
> standalone, if it will add functionality, flexibility, and give Jamie
> more time that would have been spent reinventing wheels.  I'd probably
> make enemies of Webmin users, though...
> 
> That said, XML-RPC is one of those that might just be a no-brainer.  It
> would be transparent to folks doing casual Webmin work (i.e. they only
> work directly on a single machine) and would give those of us with
> nerdier tendencies a standardized way to link into a variety of systems.
>   There will probably still be a few folks for whom this would be a
> negative--folks doing embedded installs of Webmin, perhaps?  But they've
> got to strip Webmin to the bone anyway, so this wouldn't be any major
> hurdle for them, I wouldn't think.
> 
> So, the summary: I don't know.  I can't make up my mind.  I enjoy
> ranting about it from both sides.
> 
> Wil Cooley wrote:
> > I've been thinking about it a bit lately and wanted to know what
> > anyone else thought about this: Webmin uses a "proprietary" RPC
> > mechanism (I say "proprietary" because it's not really a standard;
> > not because it's locked away by copyright or whatnot) and was
> > wondering if it might not be possible or desirable to re-work the
> > HTML-RPC mechanism to use a "standardized" XML-RPC mechanism.
> > There are Perl modules (and modules for other languages) for
> > developing XML-RPC clients and servers; so it might be nice to be
> > able to develop client-applications or non-Webmin-integrated web
> > applications using the interface.  Has anyone else considered this
> > or agree with me?
> >
> > Wil