Re: Projects

[Lenz Grimmer <grimmer@suse.de>]

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Aaron D. Turner wrote:

> I was beginning to think the same thing.  I think we should list what
> projects we are thinking of doing, prioritize them, and start
> assigning actual jobs to people to code.

I'd also welcome this idea. Right now, I am pretty clueless, where to
start.

> Some ideas from my head:
> 
> Linux Business Finder (If we get enough companies to list in this, it
> 	would make VERY compelling content.  This point was especially
> 	interesting to NaviSite and VAR.)

Do you intend to charge for listing in there? Or will it be a free
service? I could contact some vendors here in Germany, when things are
rolling.

> Mirroring of major sites/pages
> 	LDP
> 	Errata Pages for major distributions
> 	Key Projects like: IP Masqurade Homepage
> 	RPM Repository
> 	Pull content from major news sites (Like slashdot.org does for
> 		Freshmeat)

This could be done with wget. We use a script based on wget for our
mirroring purposes, maybe I could snarf this and modify it for the LKB.

> SQL DB for index of site
> 	Rating of entries by visitors
> 	Sorting of indexes (by catagory and then by rating)
> 	????

This would require a database layout, including tables and relationships.

> Ht://dig Search engine 
> 	requires mirrors up and running

Not necessarily. AFAIK, ht://dig can also index remote sites. I could test
this, if you want.

> User Contribution Forms:
> 	Add a FAQ (Q&A)
> 	Ask a question (other visitors will answer)
> 	Feedback

Maybe we could use part ot the "ask slashdot" code for this?

> Message Board 
> 	The scripts I emailed the list earlier about can be installed in
> 	about 1/2 hour.
> 
> Admin Forms
> 	Approve FAQ's, Questions, and Answers before including in index
> 	System Health
> 
> Site Design Spec's
> 	PHP yes or no?

Even though PHP has matured a lot, I'd vote for Perl in combination with
DBD/DBI and mod_perl. Did we already decide about the RDBMS? I'd recommend
mySQL - it's free for use as a WWW-Backend.

> 	Frames or No Frames?  If Frames, do we bother with a non-frames
> 		version?	

I'd like to recommend not to use frames. It adds additional complexity and
is harder to maintain. The most popular sites do not use frames (anymore).

> 	Optimized for 800x600 screens?

I've no strong opinion about this, but we should keep it simple enough to
be viewed even with Lynx.

> System Configuration
> 	Partition Sizes & design

As soon as we have the real hardware on hand. But this should be worked
out real quick :)

> 	Basic patching/locking down of system (TCP Wrappers, Tripwire,
> 		ssh, turning off ftp/telnet, etc)

Well, the usual things. Disable all unnecessary services, maybe set up
some firewalling rules, use ssh...
Do you see an urge to use tripwire?

> 	Do we run DNS on this machine too?

Would it be necessary? I don't know. Anyway, DNS is not a performance hog.

Bye,
	LenZ

------------------------------------------------------------------
 Lenz Grimmer                                           SuSE GmbH
 mailto:grimmer@suse.de                       Schanzaeckerstr. 10
 http://www.suse.de/~grimmer             90443 Nuernberg, Germany