[Wrapper-user] Request for opinions on the API for requesting user information.

[Leif M. <le...@ta...>]

The next version of the Wrapper will include the ability to request
information about the user currently running the Wrapper as well
as the user, if any, that is currently logged in to a Windows box.
This is implemented using the following two calls:

WrapperUser WrapperManager.getUser( boolean groups )
WrapperUser WrapperManager.getInteractiveUser( boolean groups )

Both methods take a parameter that specifies whether or not the returned
WrapperUser object should contain information about which groups the
user belongs to. This is a fairly heavy operation on Windows so I wanted
to give the user the option of not requesting the groups if it is not
needed.

The returned WrapperUser object is actually an instance of a
WrapperWin32User or a WrapperUNIXUser. They each contain additional
platform specific information.

On Windows the getUser call will always return a user. But when the Wrapper
is being run as a service, this will most likely be the SYSTEM user. Which
is not very interesting.

If the getInteractiveUser method is called before a user logs on to the
machine
it will return null. Otherwise it will return the user, if any, which
currently
has interactive status with the Wrapper as a service. If the service is not
interactive then this will always return null.

User code will need to poll these methods manually to detect when a user
logs on. They are not super heavy, but heavy enough that I do not want
the wrapper to be making the calls unless the user code actually needs
the user information.

First of all does anyone have any opinions or concerns about the Windows
implementation?

My next question is what do you think would be best to do on the UNIX
side?

The getUser call will return the user that is currently running the Wrapper.

But what should the getInteractiveUser method return?
Currently I am thinking of having it return null unless a DISPLAY
environment variable is detected. Otherwise it would return null.

Users often ask how to detect when a user has opened an XWindows session
under Linux so they can display a GUI. This is actually not very simple
under UNIX however.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Leif