On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 3:21 PM, ivailo ilionov
<ivailo.ilionov@...> wrote:
>> Any implementation is fine really.
>>
>> There have been many stats projects in the past that have failed due to
>> various reasons. A simple question is: How are you planning on making
>> your idea/proposal not fail? ;)
>
> As Dylan Hunt would say: "By making it right : )" ( with the smile ).
>
> __
>
> The simple answer :
>
> The server:
> - will wait for clients to send information about the system

How will the clients talk to the server?
  - Rest?
  - XMLRPC?
  - Something else?

> - will tell about the statistics they want

do you plan to offer a webUI or just an API?

> - will print an overall statistic if nothing specified
> - register clients, the registration will be optionally set with an
> expire value, or by default
>  one month ( the expiration timer is reseted on every update by the client )

How will you authenticate clients?  How will you protect sensitive data?
What if one client has hundreds of machines, will your client auth be
'per host'?
What about third party clients?
What about clients that upload fake data?
 - will your client sign the data with a privkey so fake data is
harder to upload?
 - if so, how often will you rotate keys?

>
> The client ( a daemon on the client machine ):

rationale for daemon vs cronjob?

> - periodically will check different kind of interesting things
>  - in cases of device checks, the daemon will check on start up, as
> it is added as init
>    script to default level
>  - arch - again on start up
>  - in case of installed packages, the daemon will check them
> periodically. default will be
>    one week or user defined ( no more than the defined expiration
> date by the server )
> - will choose, from a list of activated modules, what information to send

I'd like to see some examples of modules and then some plan on what
order you think you will implement them.
A daemon with 2 working modules is better than a daemon with 10 half
finished ones.  We can always get people to add more later.  How will
the modules work?

>
> Optional:
> - GUI interface to configure the daemon on the client machine using GTK.

Lets call this a stretch goal eh ;)

>
> __
>
> I don't have anything specific in mind for the server configuration,
> but it could be via a
> simple text file.
>
> I have been exposed to the MVC idea, so of course I intend to separate
> logic, presentation,
> and storage of information.
>
> __
>
> Some information about me:
>
> I'm from Bulgaria ( GMT+2 ). First year in Informatics at an
> university. I'm using gentoo
> since 2007 and of course I intend to continue using it : )
> I have experience with Perl and C/C++ ( I still haven't read the
> second vol of Thinking in C++, but I feel ready for it ).
>
> No experience with open source/ and free/ projects.
>
> Ah, my name is ( by id card ) Ivaylo Ilionov and I'm 21 years old : )
>
> Any questions or suggestions are welcomed. If I annoyed you with
> something - sorry.
>
>