nis or ldap? and other questions for a cyber cafe

el_pajaro! · 07-14-2005, 05:32 PM

I have an small cyber cafe with 6 machines using debian sarge. I use a software call cybermin to control de access to the computers. This software is no that good and I want something more automatic.

My idea is that I can create several users on the network and I would use nis or openldap to centralize this information. So my clients would be available to login from any computer with the same username and password.

After I do this I want to control the time of the users. I was thinkin tu use the .login and .logout scripts of the shell (just guessing the names of the scripts). So when the user logins a timer would start and while this timer is diferente than 0 the user can still login. If the timer is equal to 0 no more credit he would have to buy another card or rechard the one he is using.

I would also would like to have a timer on the screem, I would preffer to have it on a panel.

This are just ideas that I have to automatize my cyber cafe. The idea is that it can work with out me, and there would be someone selling the pre pay cards so my clients can use the computers.

Any recomendation, I would start playing with nis tomarrow. Hope to hear from you.

Greetings

Matir · 07-14-2005, 05:51 PM

Either NIS or LDAP will work fine for this, I think. With LDAP you *might* be able to store the time amounts in the same database as well. Otherwise, a tiny MySQL database can store this information, but that might make things a tiny bit more complex. This actually sounds like a really interesting project (though, to you, I'm sure it's "just business"). Centralized authentication definitely makes sense.

el_pajaro! · 07-14-2005, 10:16 PM

It is an intresting project and it would help me a lot on the cyber. I have to investigate a lot, but it is allways nice to learn.

Thanks a lot for the comments

Matir · 07-14-2005, 11:15 PM

Feel free to get in touch with me (and, of course, anyone on this forum) if you run into problems, but I'd love to see how this turns out. System administration issues are my favorite, lol.

el_pajaro! · 08-18-2005, 01:22 PM

So I have setup nis now on my debian sarge network and I have centralize the login.

Now I would like to do the time control.

1) I want to save the time that the user has left. (can be mysql)
2) I want to have a timer in a panel of the gui. (I am using gnome)
3) I would like to pop-up windows when there is a small amount of time left.
4) Logout when the left time is 0

Would you recommend any programing language?
How can I make the gui? (pretty simple)

Greetings and back to google