SME Server:Documentation:Developers Manual

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Developer Documentation

This manual is aimed at developers and provides the information they require to integrate their applications into the SME Server platform. The manual discusses the key concepts of the SME Server such as the configuration database, configuration file templates and the events and actions model which differentiate the SME Server from other Linux distributions.

Section I. An overview of the SME Server

1. About this manual

2. Who should read this manual?

3. What is the SME Server?

4. Design philosophy

• Principle 1: Automating best practice
• Principle 2: Simplicity
• Principle 3: Extensibility
• Principle 4: Reliability

5. Architecture overview

Section II. SME Server internals

6. Configuration database

• Overview
• The configuration databases
• Namespace issues

7. Actions and events

• Actions
• Events

8. Configuration file templates

• Design of the template system
• The Text::Template module
• Template expansion

9. Process startup, supervision and shutdown

• Process startup
• Process supervision: runit (and supervise)

10. The server-manager web interface

• The web directory
• Web function scripts
• Common files
• Panel definitions

Section III. How to create an SME Server package - step by step

11. Getting started

• Creating a development environment

12. Getting to know how to customize the SME Server

• Exercise 1: Changing a configuration template
• Exercise 2: The magic of templates
• Exercise 3: Using events and actions
• Exercise 4: Adding new configuration database parameters
• Exercise 5: Adding a user interface screen
• Exercise 6: Adding a new event type
• Exercise 7: Thought experiment - adding a new server application
• Customization guidelines

13. Packaging your application

• A quick introduction to RPMs
• Selecting and creating RPMs for your application
• Setting up your RPM development environment
• Building an RPM

14. The SME Server development environment (also see Package Modification)

• Configuring your development environment
• Modifying an SME Server package
• SourceForge developer CVS access

Section IV. Advanced customization of the SME Server

15. Advanced customization principles

• Leveraging the provisioning system for users, groups, and i-bays
• Programmatically creating users, groups, and i-bays
• Reserving accounts to avoid conflicts with user, group, or i-bay names
• Adding new account properties
• Using the LDAP server
• Data backup
• Using the MySQL database
• Sending email messages
• Managing the firewall
• Starting up programs automatically upon system boot

Section V. Documentation and resources

16. Other sources of information

• Perl modules
• Documentation Links

Section VI. License texts

Appendices

• A. GNU Free Documentation License
• B. GNU General Public License