We can also talk about technology. It is everywhere, satellites, tvs, cell phones, internet, computers, games, microwaves, dvd… Is part of our life.

What happen if we mix this all together?

Well let’s talk about … me?

Fourteen years old. My parents bought a computer , with his Windows 98. Everything works till it brokes. I brought it to a technician, and I had to spent all of my pocket money. So I promised my self not to bring my pc again to a technician.

That made me a bit more free, I learned how to fix it and then I was able to do what I want with the machine, so I had the way to fix it without spending money. Great!. The magic tool exists is knowledge.

In a couple of years, nothing in that windows was enough so, I started very light to read some about that thing called “linux” affiliate to some news account. But i was 17 when I started to use half linux and half windows.  Things weren’t very trivial and I hadn’t broadband, so I had a quite big amount of CDs with different distros, and when i want to use my winmodem, I used suse, for little funny games redhat, and other times,  mandrake, Caldera… I didn’t know how anything was working, but was funny and each time easier to deal with it.

So the first step in open source was experimenting, sometimes a bit  frustrating but… is part of the game.

When the broadband was up to my pocket. I got my connection, and started to learn from forums, online tutorials, irc…

Debian, seven Debian CDs.

… that day I wasn’t conscious, what that will supose for me, and my future.

I’ve annoyed a lot of people with questions, read a lot of tutorials, spent hours learning of other people experiences…

But all of that is something that one day you will give it back to someone else, is the cycle. One day is you who helps other to begin with his distro, or compiling an app, or making his sound card to work.

I’ve studied computer engineering and I’ve been in touch with free software the last 5 years,  I don’t have to pay for my software, i can do with it what I want.

One more step is promote it. Convincing people, telling how wonderful it is, and how many people you’ve met, and how you can enjoy it, and what advantages are ready for you and for free.

6 years using linux, make me to work as system administrator and i love it. So the free software one day let me to earn money and build my life.

Now the last part. CONTRIBUTE!

Is the best part, documentation, developing, translating, whatever you want, you can do things for people as people has done for you.

A popular sensation when you begin, is that there a lot of gurus, and you are not able to be in this world, everywhere are levels, you can be an user, a contributor, or just become a fan

Experiment, Use, Share, Work, Contribute.

But never finish,  is an inphinite cycle where you can always learn from everybody and you have a lot to teach the other. ¿Isn’t that the  freedom?. Enjoy it.

Debconf for modules

Well with them tools we can modify in a polite way from the postinst script the pam.d/* files and the nsswitch.conf trough the updaters.

This mechanism is being tested now in libpam-ldap and libnss-ldap packages. I have both of them with a new Debconf dialog asking to the user if he want to activate the module in that moment. So if the answer is yes, the updaters modify the files as the way is said in the doc of the package.

Debian Installer.

I’m starting with the new   udeb which will be incharge in a future of asking the user who is installing the system if he would like to  use some kind of authentication service.

A list of available systems will be prompted and through a multiselect he could select what he wants to use.

The list will only show the systems wich their packages implement the debconf dialogs to use the updaters at postinst.

After the selection the packages will be hooked for installation with apt-install.

This way when the installation is finished, the system is prepared to log on the selected service since the first login.

Last night we were on a club where some coca-cola promotional people, set up a huge glowing blackboard, where you can draw with a green laser. I Asked them for a try and make a photo that I think I have to share with all of you. The girl asked me about what was the meaning of that. I told her but I think that she didn’t realize what I was talking about. Anyway but I went out of there so happy with my little piece of art.

Have a nice day.

I’ve tried as many combinations and possible use errors as I could imagine, but probably I’ve missed up some one. If you try and find something not spected, something strange or have any suggestions, do not hesitate to contact me.

update-nsswitch can modify nsswitch.conf, and update-pam, modifies, the different pam.d/common-* files

To use them, you need to copy your nsswitch and pam.d in the same directory where the code is unpacked, this is for preventing on modifying the real files. If you want to try it with real ones is up to you and under your responsability.

Download

None documentation is done yet, but with the usage() may be enough.

well… dpkg -i libpam-libnss-260.deb

YEAH, It doesn’t work!!!

Why? some Troubles have been found on our update-nsswitch.pl

• - Cannot recognize and manage, when you try to use a DB that it doesn’t exist in the local nsswitch.conf

Here is a really common nsswitch.conf. If you use the tool calling it for updating the database (e.g sendmailvars) with the source (ldap) in the last position. The database doesn’t exist as seen above. Finish with non result without errors.

• When using an “after” or “before” source to determine the position of our new source, the pattern “match too much”. What’s that? If we have two sources with the pattern as part of its name, we have a trouble.

This is just an example, files3 and filesauth, are not a valid or real sources

If we try to update the hosts database positioning ldap before files

The result is.

• If we use an “after” or “before” source that it doesn’t exist at the line, it doesn’t do anything.

This condition will include that source in a default action that will be to be the last source on the line.

After this propably the tool will be 99.9% working. Except if any of my fixes make something buggy, this afternoon will be finished and tested, into the package we were talking about before.

Probably some issues have to be fixed with the other tool update-pam.d but now the work is to have a polite nsswitch updater and good postinst scripts.

My project will be for Debian and is called PamNssInstaller. Oh yeah great but.. What is it;
Well lets talk about files involved in this mess
nsswitch.conf This file is in charge of how and where to look for the needed information, is divided in two columns, first “what information are we looking for” passwd, hosts, shadow, bootparams, ethers… And the second colums says how and where to look.

lets see an example of this file.

This way we can see how to set up some kind of chains of looking up the required information.(man nsswitch.conf for more information)

pam.d/common-* Files

In pam.d directory we find some files, in a clean base installed system there are 4 conffiles common-passwd, common-auth, common-account and common-session. After installing other things such gdm, samba, sudo, they create their own config files to set up their applications, but we will work on common-* that its aim is global and required for the system and its functionalities.

In these files the information is about, how to interact with the different auth modules, and in which order or situations. See an example of a common-account file

This is just an example of wht the README.debian of libpam-ldap say that you have to set up in your account file. The aim of the post is not to explain all about pam system. For further information you can look at pam documentation.

Due to the policy, these conffiles cannot be modified directly by the packages or their installation. The way to do this is to implement some tools which are capable to do it, and use them by maintainer scripts. So that is the goal of the project, implement that tools, suit them into the source deb packages pack them in libnss and libpam, and work on the package system to do it properly. In this way there are things to specify but the is the main Idea.

The common-account example i’ve shown is what libpam tell you to do by hand. In a future when our job is finished, the maintainer script will ask if the user wants to activate, and if it yes, the tools of update-pam will be used to do it. And when a libnss installed the update-nsswitch will be used.

Well this was a little explanation of what is what i have to do.

At the google summer of code, all applicants as me, have a mentor acting as a tutor on the project, who tells you what to do and what not. It also a partner of you to work with, and is the link between you and the organization, in my case is Debian. My mentor is Fabio Tranchitella also known as kobold. Is Italian and is one of the debian developer who is participating and sponsoring a quite big amount of packages (Overview), and also involved at the zope project.

I think his skills are great and i can learn a lot in this project mentored by him. Let me say thanks to him for mentoring me.

More than a month far away since I was acepted on the program participating with Debian. Sorry about not telling this before. And sorry is well for how missing I’ve been around here, not posting and even not attending to comments.

This is a great opportunity to meet people, see how other people works and also a great opportunity to participate in Open Source Software projects…

…And What the hell!!!! In some kind of way WORKING FOR GOOGLE. Sounds great, and makes me to feel proud of myself. But will be a stronger proudness feeling when the goals of the project will be done.

Due to this responsability i think i have. I left my job last week in net2u_, because I want to be full-time at my summer task trying to have enough time to work hard, and why not, to have time to travel and have fun. Sorry about that to my coleagues and partners, but sometime you have to do an “All in” for what you think you should, so… i can’t say anything else about that.

What I’m looking for in the Summer of Code? Well, influence, experience, meeting people (great and interesting people), contribute in debian and a t-shirt.

I think Google SoC shows to the world something very interesting. How people of everywhere can work together, where, genders, ideas, races and all this stuff doesn’t matters. We are all partners and we do not mind anything of what it supose to matters. We matters about, broadband, code, freedom and knowledge.

In the next post i’ll talk about my project and my mentor Fabio Tranchitella.

See you all folks

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