On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Joey Hess wrote: > Given how long it's been since thatxearth file was made, and how little data > is in it anyway, I wonder if the second script is needed at all? (I for one > have moved 3 times since I provided my coordinates.)
Okay, everything is prepared now. I have written the LDAP -> xearth script, it is installed on faure (ud-xearth). The web page (https://db.debian.org/) now has fields for editing one's coordinates. Here is the man page for the ud-info program that goes into detail about all the fields, their meaning and in particular discusses how to locate ones position and the format that is required. Jason ud-info(1) ud-info(1) NAME ud-info - Command line LDAP user record manipulator SYNOPSIS ud-info [options] DESCRIPTION ud-info is the command-line tool for end users to manipu- late their own database information and to view other users information. It also provides root functions which when combined with sufficient LDAP privilages allow an administrator to completely manipulate a users record. The defined fields are: o cn - Common (first) name. [root] o mn - Middle name or initial. [root] o sn - Surname (last name). [root] o cn - ISO 3166 country code, see /usr/share/zone- info/iso3166.tab Should be upper case. o ircnick - IRC nickname. o l - City name, state/province. The part of a mail- ing address that is not the street address. e.g.: Dallas, Texas o postalcode - Postal Code or ZIP Code o postaladdress - Complete mailing address including postal codes and country designations. Newlines are seperated by a $ character. The address should be formed exactly as it would appear on a parcel. o latitude/longitude - The physical latitude and lon- gitude. This information is typically used to gen- erate an xearth marker file. See the discussion below on position formats. o facsimiletelephonenumber - FAX phone number, do not forget to specify a country code [North Armerica is +1]. o telephonenumber - Voice phone number. o loginshell - Full path to the prefered Unix login shell. e.g. /bin/bash o emailforward - Destination email address. userdir-ldap 17 Sep 1999 1 ud-info(1) ud-info(1) o userpassword - Encrypted version of the password. [root] o supplementarygid - A list of group names that the user belongs. This field emulates the functional- ity of the traditional Unix group file. [root] o onvacation - A message indicating that the user is on vacation. The time of departure and expected return date should be included as well as any spe- cial instructions. o comment - Administrative comment about the account. [root] o labeledurl - User's web site. When prompted for a password it is possible to enter a blank password and access the database anonymously. This is useful to check PGP key fingerprints, for instance. SECURITY AND PRIVACY Three levels of information security are provided by the database. The first is completely public information that anyone can see either by issuing an LDAP query or by vis- iting the web site. The next level is "maintainer-only" information that requires authentication to the directory before it can be accessed. The final level is admin-only or user-only information; this information can only be viewed by the user or an administrator. Maintainer-only information includes precise location information [postalcode, postal address, lat/long] tele- phone numbers, and the vacation message. Admin-only/maintainer-only information includes email for- warding and the encrypted password. Note that email for- warding is necessarily publicly viewable from accounts on the actual machines. LAT/LONG POSITION There are three possible formats for giving position information and several online sites that can give an accurate position fix based on mailing address. Decimal Degrees The format is +-DDD.DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. This is the format programs like xearth use and the format that many positioning web sites use. However typically the precision is limited to 4 or 5 decimals. userdir-ldap 17 Sep 1999 2 ud-info(1) ud-info(1) Degrees Minutes (DGM) The format is +-DDDMM.MMMMMMMMMMMMM. It is not an arithmetic type, but a packed representation of two seperate units, degrees and minutes. This output is common from some types of hand held GPS units and from NMEA format GPS messages. Degrees Minutes Seconds (DGMS) The format is +-DDDMMSS.SSSSSSSSSSS. Like DGM, it is not an arithmetic type but a packed representa- tion of three seperate units, degrees minutes and seconds. This output is typically derived from web sites that give 3 values for each position. For instance 34:50:12.24523 North might be the position given, in DGMS it would be +0345012.24523. For Latitude + is North, for Longitude + is East. It is important to specify enough leading zeros to dis-ambiguate the format that is being used if your position is less than 2 degrees from a zero point. So locations to find positioning information are: o Good starting point - http://www.ckdhr.com/dns- loc/finding.html o AirNav - GPS locations for airports around the world http://www.airnav.com/ o GeoCode - US index by ZIP Code http://www.geocode.com/eagle.html-ssi o Map Blast! Canadian, US and some European maps - http://www.mapblast.com/ o Austrailian Database http://www.environ- ment.gov.au/database/MAN200R.html o GNU Timezone database, organized partially by coun- try /usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab Remember that we are after reasonable coordinates for drawing an xearth graph and looking for people to sign keys, not for coordinates accurate enough to land an ICBM on your doorstop! Editing Supplemental GIDs When the root function is activated then the supplemental GIDs can be manipulated as a list of items. It is possible to add and remove items from the list by name. Proper prompts are given. userdir-ldap 17 Sep 1999 3 ud-info(1) ud-info(1) OPTIONS -a Set the authentication user. This is the user whose authority is used when accessing the LDAP direc- tory. The default is to use the current system user name. -u Select the user whose fields will be dis- played/edited. The default is to use the current system user name. -c Set both the authentication user and the target user. This option is useful if the login name does not match the user who is operating the program. -r Enable root functions. This enables more options to allow changing any entry in the directory. This function only has meaning if the authentication user has the necessary permissions at the LDAP server. -n No actions. Anonymously bind and show the informa- tion for the user and then exit. FILES o /etc/userdir-ldap/userdir-ldap.conf Configuration variables to select what server and what base DN to use. AUTHOR userdir-ldap was written by Jason Gunthorpe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. userdir-ldap 17 Sep 1999 4
