Jonathan Abbey
writes:
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