[BlueOnyx:12668] Re: Auto suspend vhosts

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Chris.

> You have no idea how timely this is, as we are just starting to put 
> together some automation scripts in a new billing system.   Something 
> that has been sorely lacking in BlueOnyx (and it's not BlueOnyx's 
> "fault") is the ability to tie in with billing / customer management 
> automation systems.  

Yeah, that is true. I'm contemplating to build an XML-RPC server into
the new BlueOnyx GUI. CodeIgniter has a class and some helpers for
coding it, so that's already a jumpstart.

Through XML-RPC we can then allow remote access for some basic
provisioning procedures such as:

- Create Vsite with initial siteAdmin for it
- Configure the typical settings for the site
- Suspend/Unsuspend Vsite

Later on this can be expanded and more features can be thrown at it.
Including monitoring the server health via XML-RPC.

Rickard Osser mentioned this idea several months ago in the devel-list:
If we create a new GUI and throw in XML-RPC, we could as well API'ize
all GUI functions and make them available via XML-RPC.

I have around 30 BlueOnyx servers running for myself. Whenever I want to
do something at one of them, I have to open a new browser tab, type in
the URL (auto-complete is a savior), log in and realize: "Dang, that's
actually the wrong box. What I wanted is on another one!"

Throw in a full XML-RPC implementation: When you're logged into one of
your boxes, just access a pulldown at the top of the GUI, select another
box from the list and <bang!> you'll be logged in there via a little
XML-RPC round-about. Whatever you then see in the GUI of server "A"
(which you're logged into via browser) is actually from server "b",
which you are connected to via XML-RPC. Likewise all GUI transactions
will be performed on "b" instead.

That would be possible. If it's feasible or sensible is another matter. :p

However, the beauty of a full XML-RPC implementation would be this: Once
you've done the initial web based setup of BlueOnyx and have configured
the XML-RPC access rights, you'd never need to use the BlueOnyx GUI again.

Because you could manage the entire box through a third party
application that uses XML-RPC calls.

However, this is something for the future. But yes, some basic XML-RPC
support for the most mundane provisioning tasks will be added.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber