edit root alias when installing the OS

Jarod Wilson jarod at wilsonet.com
Thu Jan 5 05:55:19 UTC 2006


On Jan 04, 2006, at 09:22, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Am Dienstag, den 03.01.2006, 23:35 -0800 schrieb Jesse Keating:
>> On Tue, 2006-01-03 at 23:24 -0800, Jarod Wilson wrote:
>>>
>>> My belief is that there are too many users who don't, and making it
>>> easy for them to shoot themselves in the foot would lead to more
>>> trouble than its worth. But for giggles, since I'm in the process of
>>> trying to teach myself python, perhaps I'll try to put something
>>> together that does give users the choice...
>>
>> Why not both?  When creating a user, have a checkbox to 'deliver  
>> root's
>> email to this user', then also have a input dialog that says 'forward
>> this user's email to "______" address'.  This way multiple users  
>> can be
>> listed in the root alias, and each user can have their local mail
>> delivered elsewhere if desired.
>>
>> Just my $0.02
>
> I really like the idea.

I'm starting to come around to it, just so long as its made blatantly  
obvious to the user that there could be complications. Could use some  
additional feedback, question coming after some background... I  
started out w/simply adding a checkbox to the create user module in  
firstboot, then today started working on a new module "Admin Email",  
with the intention of putting three options on it, delivery admin  
email to local root, to local user created on the create user screen  
and to an external email account, with all editing done to /etc/ 
aliases. I'm definitely liking the idea of only pointing /etc/aliases  
to other local user accounts, then creating a .forward file to move  
the email outside of the system, since as Jesse points out, it gives  
you a bit more flexibility.

So now for that question... :) Create a new module, or add this all  
to the create user module? I think I'm leaning toward putting it all  
in the create user module at the moment.

Here's sort of what I'm currently envisioning:

Add to the user creation module -
   - a checkbox for "deliver root mail to this user"
   - another checkbox for "deliver this user's mail to an external  
email address
   - a field for the user to input an external email address

Now, in my first cut, I was checking to see if there was already an  
alias for root, and then spitting out an error to tell the user root  
email was already configured to be redirected (and where), and to  
edit /etc/aliases to change it. Y'all think it would be better to  
prompt the user if a root alias is already present, asking if they  
want to 1) leave the root alias alone, 2) append to the root alias or  
3) replace the root alias?

This gets a little sticky and tedious if multiple users are created w/ 
in firstboot though... (does anyone do that? nb: I don't actually  
create ANY users in firstboot these days, I use network auth, but  
this is a fun and useful excercise. :)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com


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