Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ulysses!andante!mit-eddie!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!longway!std-unix From: ahby@bungia.bungia.mn.org (Shane P. McCarron) Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Standards Update, Part 8: IEEE 1003.7 (system administration) Message-ID: <276@longway.TIC.COM> Date: 12 Dec 88 08:02:10 GMT Sender: std-unix@longway.TIC.COM Reply-To: Shane P. McCarron Lines: 84 Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) [ These Standards Updates are published after each IEEE 1003 meeting, and are commissioned by the USENIX Association. See Part 1 for contact information. -mod ] An update on UNIX|= Standards Activities - Part 8 POSIX 1003.7 Update November 18, 1988 Shane P. McCarron, NAPS International 1003.7 - System Administration This new working group met as a Birds of a Feather session during the Hawaii meeting. During that session the group convenor outlined the goals and solicited input from the attendees. At a subsequent meeting in Monterey (in conjunction with the Usenix Large System Administration Workshop) the group took the input from that meeting and the work that had been going on off line and began producing a draft document. So, what is the purpose of this body? To define a portable user interface for System Administration Utilities which would allow users to administer systems in a portable way, and allow developers to build system administration tools on top of consistent underlying commands and libraries. Since the work of this body will overlap with almost every other P1003 working group (and possibly other groups outside of POSIX), coordination is a major part of the standard development effort. Also, because the charter of this group is so broad (what is an administrative tool, anyway?), it is going to take quite a while to complete the standard. Just to give you a rough idea of what is going to covered by this group, here are some possible areas: machine startup, process management, network, software licensing management, user management, password management, etc... At the meeting in Hawaii it quickly became apparent that the scope of this group is too large to accomplish anything in a reasonable period of time. Some of the time at the Monterey meeting was spent narrowing the scope of the group to a more manageable size. The group tried to identify items which could form a basic set of libraries and commands, and could be finalized in a two to three year time frame. After the initial standard is released, there may be continuing work into areas that the first cut was not able to address. __________ |= UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other countries. - 2 - When I last wrote about this group, I was very critical of its charter and the possibility of it succeeding. I think it only fair to relate that a number of people wrote me and said that I was too judgemental, and that I should take a wait and see attitude. Bowing to the will of the people, I am not going to draw any conclusions about the working group at this time. After the January meeting, when they have formalized the areas they are going to address, I will relate all of that information and you can decide if what they are doing is a good thing. In the interim, if you want more information, or would like to share your opinions with me, please drop me a line. The Watchdog Committee's contact on 1003.7 is Mark Colburn. Her can be reached at: Mark Colburn NAPS International 117 Mackubin St. Suite 1 St. Paul, MN 55102 (612) 224-9108 mark@naps.mn.org Volume-Number: Volume 15, Number 44