CAT (CipUX Administration Tool)
Most administration tools are written by programmers/admins for admins. They look like LDAP browsers and they are LDAP browsers. What makes CAT different is that it was not written to show an LDAP tree, even if the database is a LDAP server. It was written and rewritten with the goal to make user, group, room, machine administration easy for teachers or others who do not want to spend their lives as network administrators. As well, discussions with teachers helped in designing and implementing CAT to cater for the special needs of administators with non-technical backgrounds.
One of the key concepts of CAT is, let the person who knows the subject do the job. This could be the teacher, but it does not have to be the teacher.
Here is an example from a German university. The local admin does not know who is joining what course (before CAT he spent hours finding that out), and believe it or not, most secretaries of the student administration did not know either. Even the professors did not know -- at least in some cases. The only person who knows the 150 people attending the course is usually the tutor. So, the tutor can log into the CAT module tutoradmin, and add students to the course.
CAT is driven by a role based concept, the idea being that there should be a module for each task, which can then be assigned by the administrator.
CAT version 3.2.8 is a webmin based frontend called cat-webmin. However, it does not need to remain a webmin application. In fact, the first version was an apache CGI, and it could support any type of GUI, web-based like the French moodle plugins in PHP, or a full-blown desktop application written in low level languages such as C.
The current CAT modules
attachment:cipux_useradmin.png useradmin: user support service
attachment:cipux_groupadmin.png groupadmin: group admininistration
attachment:cipux_tutoradmin.png tutoradmin: group joining, leaving
attachment:cipux_printaccountmanager.png printaccountmanager: manage money for printing
attachment:cipux_roleadmin.png roleadmin: changing roles
attachment:cipux_examadmin.png examadmin: examination environment administration (terminal server)
attachment:cipux_internetadmin.png internetadmin: internet access on terminal server
attachment:cipux_applicationform.png applicationform: application form
attachment:cipux_apply_applicationform.png apply_applicationform: apply application
attachment:cipux_userselfadmin.png userselfadmin: user self administration
attachment:cipux_clientadmin.png clientadmin: computer accounts
attachment:cipux_harwareadmin.png hardwareadmin: hardware types
attachment:cipux_imageadmin.png imageadmin: software standards
attachment:cipux_roomadmin.png roomadmin: room manager
attachment:cipux_cipuxadmin.png cipuxadmin: CipUX admin
attachment:cipux_skeladmin.png skeladmin: administration of skel directories
attachment:cipux_setup.png setup
attachment:cipux_transferadmin.png transferadmin: transfer pupils at the end of the term
Screenshots
"http://screenshot.cipux.org/3.2.9/cipux_3.2.9_index_small_part_en.png"
Documentation
Version 3.0.0 [http://dox.cipux.org/cipux-dox-3.0.0-1/cat-guide-de.pdf cat-guide-de.pdf] (German)
Different CATs
CAT webmin
A CAT for Debian-Edu 1.x and 2.x using webmin as a webserver and the webmin library for access control, translation and theming. It uses CipUX::CAT.
CAT moodle
This CAT for Debian-Edu 2.x and 3.x is written by ?JeanCharlesSiegel in PHP for the French schools and is also called cipuxPHP. It is a moodle plugin an can be accessed via moodle. It uses CipUX-RPC.
CAT web
http://screenshot.cipux.org/3.2.12/cat-web/cipux_3.2.12_cat_web_groupadmin_default_small_en_pre.png
CAT-web is written in Perl by ChristianKuelker with the aim of using a non priveleged webserver like apache. CAT-web uses the CipUX XML-RPC server. It is full theme-able and language aware.
Cat Features
function cipux_task cat-webmin cat-moodle cat-web ============================================================================= useradmin x o o groupadmin x o o o add group o o o o delete group o o o o change group password o o ? o tutoradmin x o o ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ x = not existent o = implemented - = not implemented jet # = will probably be never implemented ? = not known
Future works on CAT
Today webmin is not a part of Debian, so there is a need to replace CAT-webmin. This section collects some ideas to enhance or continue CAT:
CAT-web: write a Graphical User Interface (GUI) as CGI for apache
- The work on cat-web has started
CAT-desktop: write a CAT desktop GUI in python, perl, C, ...
Userselfadmin-desktop: write a GUI for channging user data and passwords to be used by pupils
CAT-moodle: Some CipUX tasks in Moodle, where needed. (French team works on this)
- A new CAT module for squidguard
A new CAT module for collecting files (teacher <--> pupil)
- A new CAT module for syncing the skel directories
- A new CAT module for expire dates
- A new CAT module for sending mails to users
- A new CAT module for managing the public HTML folders of pupils
- Themes in CAT
- A new CAT module for managing surfers (guests)
- A new CAT module for the export of data
- A new CAT module to adminster credits
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