[Opensim-dev] RFC: Ways of creating profiles for creators who will never log in

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Hello,

For Inventory Archives I plan to preserve item creator information.  When the archive is loaded I would like to recreate 
these profiles where possible/necessary (grid operators can choose not to allow this and that will be the default, I 
expect).

However, unless an item creator has an account on the OpenSim to which the archive is loaded, they shouldn't be able to 
login to that instance.

So far I've thought of 3 ways to create a profile without automatically allowing login.


(1)  Create a normal user account but set the password to something random.

PROS
* Doesn't require any changes to what we have today

CONS
* Creates user accounts which are never intended to be used for login
* No way to distinguish archive created accounts from legitimate accounts
~~~~~

(2)  Add a 'ProfileOnly' flag to the Users table

PROS
* Minimal changes to what we have today
* Makes it clear that an entries has been created for its profile only, which can be used as a flag to disallow logins

CONS
* Creates user accounts where many details will be irrelevant unless item creators then get accounts on the instance.
* Complicates administration tasks (e.g. create user).
~~~~~

(3)  Separate the current 'users' table into 'userprofiles' and 'users' tables.

'userprofiles' will largely contain all the metadata about a user that you can see in the profile on the Linden Labs 
Second Life client today (name, about, interests, 1st life, etc.).

'users' will contain the data associated with a particular account (passwordHash, passwordSalt, homeRegion, 
homeLocationX, etc.)

PROS
* Makes it possible to create user profiles without creating user accounts.
* Makes it possible to have somewhat separate profile and authentication plugins allow mix & match.  However, the reuse 
of avatar name as the login identifier makes things a bit awkward.
* Simplifies database understandability - the only people in the 'users' table are those with actual accounts, though on 
the other hand this does create 2 tables instead of 1.

CONS
* Short term adjustment pain for systems accessing OpenSim's databases directly
* Complicates administration tasks (e.g. create user).
~~~~

I suspect that archiving isn't the only potential use for this functionality.  For instance, the Hypergrid may also find 
it useful to preserve user information when a user rezzes an object on a foreign system.

Of the above approaches, I prefer (3) over (2) since it seems to me to be the better long term approach even if there is 
some short term pain.  I'm don't think that (1) is a good option.

I've reproduced most of text at http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Creating_profiles_not_used_for_login for reference.

Comments?

-- 
justincc
Justin Clark-Casey
http://justincc.wordpress.com