[Freeipa-devel] Using JSON for tlog config files

[Nikolai Kondrashov]

Hi Simo,

On 06/15/2016 12:25 AM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Tue, 2016-06-14 at 16:40 +0300, Nikolai Kondrashov wrote:
>> Although this was mentioned several times before, I'd like to bring additional
>> attention to the idea of using config files written in JSON for tlog, because
>> there were some concerns over that being appropriate.
>
> What was the reasoning behind this questioning ?

The concern that JSON in those files might be inconvenient for administrators.

> In order to understand whether json is appropriate I need to ask who do
> you think will be the primary user of the configuration file.
> - Is it going to be mainly sysadmins manually setting things up ?

At first, yes. Later minimally, because we plan to implement central control
of most (if not all) of the parameters. The suggestions so far were to have
the same JSON simply stored in HBAC-bound LDAP entries verbatim. Although, I'm
not sure if that would be best.

> - Is this going to be something that may need to be templated and
> delivered via things like puppet ansible ?

I didn't plan specifically for that. I expect the chances of that are about
the same as for any other config file.

> - Is it going to be a file generated by some other program (like sssd or
> similar) based on rules stored in a central system ?

I'd like to avoid requiring any program controlling tlog to write any files.
That's why I implemented passing the whole or part of the configuration via an
environment variable value, overriding the global config. However, yes, that
value is expected to be the same JSON at the moment.

> The answer to these questions will help understanding what format is
> better suited.

Thanks, Simo!

Nick