[wpkg-users] More ways of defining hosts in hosts.xml - end

[K.E.Jones at bton.ac.uk]

Hi, sorry.. a bit to add to the PS...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jones Keith
> Sent: 24 April 2009 23:25
> To: 'Jindrich Vorlicek'
> Cc: wpkg-users at lists.wpkg.org
> Subject: RE: [wpkg-users] More ways of defining hosts in hosts.xml -
> end
> 
> Hi,
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wpkg-users-bounces at lists.wpkg.org [mailto:wpkg-users-
> > bounces at lists.wpkg.org] On Behalf Of Jindrich Vorlicek
> > Sent: 22 April 2009 23:35
> > To: wpkg-users at lists.wpkg.org
> > Subject: [wpkg-users] More ways of defining hosts in hosts.xml - end
> >
> > I tested my patched wpkg.js on Windows XP Professional SP3 computers
> > joined to Windows Server 2003 domain.
> > I tested it a year and it works for me well.
> >
> > So try my patch and if you will think, that my changes are useful,
> > maybe could be used (or its parts) in next version of wpkg.
> >
> > If you want detailed description of all new functions, you can find
> it
> > at http://bugzilla.wpkg.org/show_bug.cgi?id=118
> > (as decription off Patched wpkg.js v.1.1.0-M6)
> >
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> 
>  Brilliant!
> 
>  There's some incredibly useful stuff in there. I'd really like to see
> it become
> part of WPKG!
> 
>  It's making me think of a few alternative ways of implementing it
> though.
> I'm sorry I don't speak your native tongue so if any of this doesn't
> make
> sense let me know and I'll try and re-write it in babelfish friendly
> words.
> 
>  I've thrown in a few ideas myself but one of the arguments about
> adding
> extra facilities like this is that you always end up adding new XML
> elements
> or properties to handle. This makes it difficult for people to write a
> Web
> management system. That's something I feel would really get WPKG
> noticed.
> 
>  With your original code as an example and inspiration, I implemented
> my own
> "Group Membership" but I tried a different direction. I added it as
> another
> "test" as it went through the matching process. I based it one the
> principal
> that names are quite often unique so if a host id didn't match one
test
> it
> was safe for it to be matched against another.
> 
>  Maybe it would be easy to think about it like this;
> 
>  <host id="<match criteria>[;<match criteria>...]" profile-id="abc"/>
> 
>  and then write a good parser that tries to match the host ID to each
> type of
> test step by step as WPKG already does.
> 
>  A machine name should be unique, a group name should be unique, IP
> addresses should
> be easy to identify and maybe it's easy to also identify an OU path?
> 
>  If you see what I mean...
> 
>  I really like the idea of using ";" so you can have multiple hosts
> getting a certain
> profile. It makes sense to handle "collections" of hosts. It really
> works well in my head.
> 
>  If you've followed this far then what I'm thinking about is;
> 
>  <host id="computer01"...
>  <host id="computer01;computer02"...
>  <host id="salesgroup"...
>  <host id="computer01;salesgroup"...
>  <host id="192.168.0.4;computer02;salesgoup"...
>  <host id="192.168.0.1-100;computer02;salesgroup"...
>  <host id="192.168.0.1-100;ou=sales dc=fabrikam
> dc=com;computer02;salesgroup"...
>  <host id="192.168.0.*;computer*;sales*"...
> 
>  It all just boils down to some good code to "recognise" each match
> rather than add
> new elements and complications to the parsing.
> 
>  I think that that might be a really good and easy way of getting your
> add-ons
> easily put into WPKG. It just seems a lot neater and easy to
> understand.
> 
>  What do you think?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Keith
> 
> PS: If Rainer think this has merit you could easily apply it
everywhere
> so
> it you don't need things like /applymultiple
> 
>  I was thinking that the following would be really cool;
> 
>  <host id="match1;match2;match3" profile="profile1;profile2"/>
> 
>  Not only would it give you what you need but it would also remove the
> awkward,
> 
>  <host id="computer01" profile-id="xyz"><profile id="abc"></host>
> 
> I've always felt that WPKG needed to handle the profile property vs
> element issue.
> It really would make things simpler on the coding front.
> 
>  There's no reason why the matches couldn't also be regex expressions
> :-)
> 

 I just realised that my thoughts might not work as you were suggesting.

 The /applymultiple looks at the idea of parsing ALL the profiles and
collecting
ALL the applicable ones.  I see what you mean now. That's really cooler
than I thought ;-)

 I guess you could synthesize it using the ideas I've suggested but it
wouldn't be
perfect so yes maybe I'd vote for WPKG to not stop parsing host id's as
soon as it
found the first match. That might cause issues for existing setups so
maybe it should
be a new command line parameter after all?

 Sorry for the mis-interpretation!

 Have you any ideas about how it could be implemented without the new
parameter?

regards,

 Keith

> PPS: Sorry I haven't added my commitment for a while. Work has been
> unusually difficult!
> 
> PPPS: It also make another thought spring to mind. How about;
> 
>  <check "rule1 and (rule2 or rule3)">
> 
>  Where rule1 etc are different checks... Now that would save all the
> awkward parsing
> of XML elements there as well.
> 
>  Hrmmm... WPKG 3.0 I think... lots to do before that idea...