[Freeipa-devel] user interfaces & default values = problem

[Petr Spacek]

Hello list,

I realized one general problem we have with user interfaces for IPA & default 
values for various configuration options.

Let me use DNS dynamic update as an example:
- We have "built-in" default configuration (disabled)
- We have "global" configuration object (ipaDnsConfig)
- We have "per-object" configuration (in each DNS zone)

IMHO user interface would be more usable if user can *see* which value is 
effective for particular service (and more generally any other object).

At the moment, command "ipa dnszone-show example.com" will not show "dynamic 
update" value if it is not configured in the zone itself.

E.g.
[root at ipa1 ~]# ipa dnszone-show example.com
   Zone name: example.com
   Authoritative nameserver: ipa1.example.com.
   Administrator e-mail address: hostmaster.example.com.
   SOA serial: 1360583295
   SOA refresh: 3600
   SOA retry: 900
   SOA expire: 1209600
   SOA minimum: 3600
   Active zone: TRUE
   Allow query: any;
   Allow transfer: none;

# No "Dynamic update" value is shown above ...

$ ipa dnsconfig-show
[root at ipa1 ~]# ipa dnsconfig-show
---------------------------------
Global DNS configuration is empty
---------------------------------

What is the built-in default? It is in bind-dyndb-ldap documentation ...


It is hard to debug things when you can't *see* effective value. IMHO it would 
be good to add lines like:
   Dynamic update: FALSE (inherited built-in default)
and
   Dynamic update: FALSE (inherited global configuration)

+ some graphical representation of same thing to WebUI.

Exactly same problem applies to PAC type for each service etc, so some general 
solution would be nice.

Microsoft has something called "Resultant Set of Policy" for this purpose.

-- 
Petr^2 Spacek