User Account Management
Provide an improved API for managing user accounts. Update applications like GDM, user switch applet, user and group administration tool to use this API.
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Complete
- Approver:
- Martin Pitt
- Priority:
- Low
- Drafter:
- Robert Ancell
- Direction:
- Needs approval
- Assignee:
- Robert Ancell
- Definition:
- Obsolete
- Series goal:
- None
- Implementation:
-
Deferred
- Milestone target:
- None
- Started by
- Completed by
- Robert Ancell
Whiteboard
https:/
https:/
= Requirements =
* User object:
* Name
* Home directory
* Contact information (phone, address, jabber etc)
* Image
* Logged in status
* Notification of user add/remove/update
* Must support large number of users and information in remote locations
without blocking/excessive network/filesystem access
* Data sources
* <jedi wave>there is no /etc/passwd - use NSS
* Do not enumerate home directories!! or at least provide an async API for
only scanning a subset for an icon (like if you only show the top 5 users
in gdm, request to scan only those)
* enumerating the number of users may even be a costly operation
* Needs multiple backends for different OS, like using adduser on Debian/Ubuntu (but please not in the "dynamic crazy" way of s-t-b; build time configuration seems appropriate?)
* Data consumers
* Login manager
* User admin tool
* User switcher
* about me
* gnome-screensaver?
* No other use cases?
= Linking Telepathy and local users =
* No use case?
* Investigate existing/future efforts
* Overlap with system-
* https:/
* http://
* freedesktop effort?
= Structure =
Should be a separate project, not built into gdm; that way, it is kept as non-interactive, non-GTK-dependent project shareable with KDE/XFCE, etc., and can also have noninteractive test suite
gdm's code would become much cleaner then, too
Implementing in Python is pretty expensive wrt. startup cost if this daemon gets activated often during sessions -> glib/C? vala?
= Conclusions =
* No resource for Lucid, reschedule for Lucid+1?
* Limited number of applications to make use of it
* Good candidate for shared effort with KDE/freedesktop
