Unified Diff

Well, it’s official… I’m a geek. A few weeks ago I started writing an extension for the PHP runtime that provides bindings to libfuse. Back up a few months— I wrote a PHP script to screen-scrape the Trac web interface and allow me to grab source code to a project I’m working on.

My solution worked but it was pretty ugly. So I wondered if it would be better to implement a FUSE file system to do the same task. Unfortunately PHP didn’t have bindings for libfuse at the time. After several failed attempts at using SWIG to automagically generate an extension, I came to the harsh realization that if I wanted FUSE bindings I’d have to do it myself. I mean… how hard could it be?

It actually wasn’t too bad. I read a bunch of non-existent documentation on the Zend API and went to work on a prototype. It took me about a week, but I now have a working PHP extension. I’ve also since implemented TracFS to replace my ugly script.

I love Amarok and wanted to install it on my MacBook. With Qt4 on the horizon, it will be possible to run Amarok natively in OS X without an X server. But I didn’t want to wait for Amarok2 to become stable, so I looked into compiling Amarok 1.4 and running it under X.

I tried following the On OS X guide with limited success. Apparently, ffmpeg won’t compile on Leopard and that caused the entire libxine compilation to fail. I tried various combinations of configure flags, but none seemed to help. I looked at the source to try and fix it, but unfortunately I’m not terribly familiar with x86 assembly.

Well I finally did it. Last summer I set out to build and run CLAWS in my own environment. I was able to get parts of it running, but there were a few problems I was stuck on. I haven’t had much time to work on it since then, but over spring break I managed to get everything built and installed.

My goal was to get CLAWS running the way RIT uses it, and then write patches to the main codebase. If certain people in high places liked the changes I made, they could take the patches and apply them upstream. Even if that doesn’t happen, I could always fork the project and continue development on my own. For political reasons, I’d have to wait to do this until after I graduate.

The PAWS Project is aimed at taking what is now a very RIT-centric software system and transforming it into something the general public can use. Much to the chagrin of some un-named information security officials, CLAWS is open source and so I can (at very least) develop from the r2977 snapshot.

In the coming few months I plan to have my documentation finished for building and installing CLAWS. I should have a lighter schedule this summer, so I’m hoping to get most of my development work done then.

Managing thousands of user accounts in a heterogeneous computing environment can be a nightmare. Then throw in the need to manage user identities and network access to over forty-thousand network devices. What is a systems administrator to do? Enter CLAWS, RIT’s new open-source enterprise account, identity, and computer management tool.

The CLAWS central server manages communications between the various clients and back-end systems. A self-help tool allows students to activate an account and edit identity and mail preferences. The Help Desk client provides account management functions for staff that streamlines account creation and maintenance across the multiple systems.

Right now, CLAWS is used in production by both students and Help Desk staff. We are presently working to integrate IPEdit functionality into CLAWS. Visit the project homepage for more information.