[pmwiki-users] New module: Suffr

Kirk Zurell kirk at zurell.name
Wed Jan 16 09:06:03 CST 2008


Hi all. I've added a new module that you might be interested in to the 
Cookbook. Suffr (from "suffrage") is a PmWiki module that implements 
democratic control of the underlying operating system. It's designed to 
let Wiki users compose changes for the system's configuration, and then 
vote/sign off on them; when they're approved, the module replaces RC 
files, execs commands, or emits and invokes (bash) scripts.

Applications include all the usual sysadmin/dba tasks, everything from 
running rc.d start/stop/restart to editing server process configs. It 
could even edit PmWiki's config.php.

I created it to answer the question "who should be held responsible when 
someone posts something objectionable?". Sysadmins who mightn't use the 
Wiki themselves wouldn't want to answer for it. So with Suffr the users 
who manage the Wiki also manage the webserver & OS.

It's just a proof of concept at this stage but it works (at least on my 
test machine). It's by no means a safe idea yet; do not use on 
production or testing machines or any computer you care about.

No claims that this is an original idea; would appreciate hearing of 
others doing the same. Need more grist for the mill :)

In the zip I put a documentation page into wikilib.d; let me know if 
this isn't wise.

Thanks for a really wonderful tool and the active community. Hope this 
serves someone's needs.

http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/Suffr

Kirk Zurell
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
kirk at zurell.name



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