On 7/12/07, Ersin Er <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Well, what I was thinking was storing a representation of the XML in DIT, instead of the raw XML. So I think it may be better to use the DIT as a configuration store for Spring (as they also support Java Configuration files for example).
This is exactly where I was leading with the incremental evolution of this idea. Once we try out storing the server.xml (with minimal labor involved) we can always take that to the next level which is to write a spring BeanDefinitionReader that reads bean defs from some custom LDAP schema. Of course this widens the divide from the guys who embed and don't want to give up the hand edited server.xml, so I think we need to keep some solution in mind for that use case too. BTW, I like Spring too!
On 7/12/07, Chris Custine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is basically a response to some of the other threads regarding > server.xml and Config in DIT, but I don't want to derail those threads if > this turns out to be a stupid idea. > > I have been thinking about this for a while, and I have to admit that I am > one of the guys that likes Spring and the xml config files. Because of that > I have been thinking about possible interim steps so that we can get a good > grip on the needs and wants of the users while still solving some of our > internal problems that we want to address in the short term. Based on the > recent threads about this topic, I get the distinct feeling that we might be > underestimating the affect this subject has as far as user impact and user > preferences and stand a good chance of irritating some people. > > My latest idea seems really obvious the more I think about it... For the > time being, why don't we just move towards storing the server.xml in its > entirety as a string attribute under ou=system somewhere and restructure the > startup sequence to properly read and load the Spring context from there? > This sounds crazy, but bear with me for a moment... This would give us the > ability to "configure in DIT" so to speak, but would also expose some really > interesting options for remote configuration, like modifying the current > Apache DS Configuration plugin that Pierre-Arnaud has already written to > just read from and save to the server it is currently connected to. We > could also do an interceptor or something similar on the server to write the > file out to disk after a remote edit and allow a startup option or quick > command line script to load a new file after you edit it in vi or similar. > This CLI could even put the data directly to the JDBM tables so that you can > make edits without the server running. > > I have a couple of reasons for bringing this to the table. First of all, I > am one of those dirty, sadistic perverts that likes editing xml files by > hand as opposed to many other forms of config... xml is like a second > language to me :-) > > Second and most importantly for ApacheDS, is that an approach like this will > give us a great short term benefit of remote config and admin capability, > without all of the work. The server config editor that PAM wrote looks > fantastic to me and (hopefully) we can just extend the concept and hack it > to do what is needed for this without re-writing all of it. This way we can > do the Config in DIT in an incremental fashion and possibly save some grief > that we may encounter later. We will also be able to move on more quickly > to more serious tasks and implement high visibility features. > > I am sure there are some technicalities that may be obstacles to this > idealistic approach, but I have had worse ideas, so I thought I would bring > it up and present it. What do you guys think? > > Thanks, > Chris > -- Ersin Er R.A. and Ph.D Student at the Dept. of Computer Eng. in Hacettepe University http://www.cs.hacettepe.edu.tr Committer and PMC Member of The Apache Directory Project http://directory.apache.org
