[Opensim-users] UAI Development

[Justin Clark-Casey]

On 30/11/11 10:33, Joshua Rubeck wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I am currently working on a user account interface for Open Simulator. Though I must say that My skills in PHP are very
> limited as I am still learning I figured it would be nice to have this kind of tool for Open Simulator. I would also
> like to open the table to anyone who would like to help with this project as it would benefit all of us for easier
> access to our respective grids.

Hi Joshua.  Off the top of my head, there are currently 4 different approaches to tying a web UI in with OpenSim.

1) Edit the db directly.  This is a common and simplish approach but can be fragile if the DB changes.  I think the 
older opensimwi (redux) takes this approach but I've never looked at the code.  There is some documentation at [1].  If 
you start going down this route and need some more information, I'm happy to fill out some details as required.

2) Use existing C# services and database classes to interact with the DB, but supplement these with other C# services 
and database classes.  This is what the Diva distro does [2] with extra request handlers in Diva.Wifi to handle incoming 
requests from the webpages and a smidgen more database code in Diva.Data.MySQL.  However, I would say that writing this 
additional C# is complicated.

3) Just use existing C# services.  Actually, various of your functions are already available as service calls on a 
ROBUST instance, or can be configured to be available in latest git master (e.g. by setting AllowCreateUser = true in 
the [UserAccountService] section of Robust.ini).  Howeverm these constitute a security risk if they can be accessed by 
third parties.  Also, documentation is spare in this area - one would have to look at OpenSim.Services.* C# packages and 
work backwaqrds.  Right now, these services aren't available for incoming http calls in standalone mode on core OpenSim. 
  I'm not sure how the Diva distro achieves this - maybe there is some cunning config approach.

This approach does require ROBUST services to be running.

4) The RemoteAdmin simulator admin facility has some facilities for these kind of operations (though probably not all). 
  However, this requires a simulator to be running, though these functios are avilable on standalone.

>
> This is what the system will have access to and what it can do:
>
> User Accounts - Add, Edit, Delete, Block(I am not sure if a block feature is enabled on Open Simulator)

Add, Edit are available.  I don't think block is possible yet (if so, someone please correct me).  It's not possible to 
delete a user.

> User Inventory - View, Delete

These should be possible.

> User Land - Add, View, Edit, Delete(For this feature there will need to be a main account for the land to be assigned
> to. Much like Second Life's Governor Linden)

I suspect land mgmt outside the client would only be possible by directly altering databases at the moment (and these 
who normally be on the region rather than centralized).

>
> One thing I would like to look into is adding an Account Status system to this. Basically the ability to hold an account
> for a specific reason that corresponds with a numeric or alpha numeric code.

UserLevel in the UserAccounts table might be usable for this.

>
> Any suggestions would be helpful as this system is still in planning and early development. There are a lot of tools out
> there but they seem to be out of date or extremely difficult to install. One thing this system would need is the ability
> to link with other servers connected to the grid. Which reminds me, Is there a way to set up that ONLY specific region
> servers can connect to a grid server?

Not at this time.

It sounds like Jason/core now has a good bundle of tools though I don't know how extensive this is since I haven't had a 
change to read all the e-mails or take a directly look.

[1] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Database_Documentation
[2] https://github.com/diva/diva-distribution
[3] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/RemoteAdmin

-- 
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
http://justincc.org/blog
http://twitter.com/justincc