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Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:44:45 -0600 (CST)
Message-Id: <199901300044.SAA16774@csdsun1.arlut.utexas.edu>
From: Jonathan Abbey <jonabbey@arlut.utexas.edu>
To: editor@lwn.net
Subject: GPL'ed network directory management system released

An announcement for a possibly major new GPL'ed project, if you
handle this sort of thing..

--

Hi.  After 3 years of work, we're releasing Ganymede, a GPL'ed network
directory management system, similar in concept to Microsoft's
ActiveDirectory and Novell's Novell Directory Services.  Ganymede is
written entirely in Java, and includes a multithreaded server capable
of handling change requests from several clients simultaneously, as
well as graphical client and console applets.

The server features a built-in object database system to store network
data.  Clients access the server using Java RMI to browse the database
and make changes to the network information.  The server then writes
out NIS, DNS, LDAP, or other sorts of source files and runs scripts to
update the directory services in use.

Ganymede is completely customizable, with a graphical schema editor to
define objects and fields to be held in the database.  The server also
has support for plug-in Java classes to provide intelligent oversight
of objects held in the server.  Included in the ganymede-0.96.tar.gz
distribution are schema kits for LINUX and FreeBSD /etc/passwd and
/etc/group management, a kit for Solaris NIS management, as well as a
comprehensive kit for managing a single NIS and DNS domain, based on
the older GASH network management software.

The Ganymede server will run on any operating system with a Java 1.1.6
or better JDK, but the install scripts and build processes are built
from a UNIX perspective, requiring Perl 5 and symlink support.
There's should be nothing technical in the software to prevent the
Ganymede server from working correctly on Windows NT, but as packaged,
it would require a great deal of hand-configuration.  We have run the
server on Solaris 2.5, Solaris 2.6, Solaris 2.7, Linux 2.0.x with the
Blackdown JDK port, FreeBSD with the FreeBSD JDK port, and on AIX.

The Ganymede clients have been run on all of the above, as well as
Windows 95 and NT using Sun's Java plug-in.

Ganymede is designed to scale up to around 50,000 network object
records, but may be able to go higher on a server with a large amount
of memory.

The Ganymede page, with documentation, screenshots, and a download
link, is at 

http://www.arlut.utexas.edu/gash2

Or, you can download Ganymede from

ftp://ftp.arlut.utexas.edu/pub/ganymede/

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Jonathan Abbey				              jonabbey@arlut.utexas.edu
Applied Research Laboratories                 The University of Texas at Austin
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