readers.conf -- is this possible

[Todd Olson]

Hi Russ
>Todd Olson <tco2 at cornell.edu> writes:
>
> > I'm wondering if the following is possible to implement within the
> > framework of readers.conf.  If not I'm wonder which is the best avenue
> > to start hacking the code.
>
>What you're trying to do doesn't work well in INN right now for the
>reasons that you state.  The Perl authentication hooks do a bit of a
>better job with it, and the external authenticators need to be expanded to
>have the same set of features as the Perl hooks.

Thanks for the pointer, I'll look more closely at this part of nnrpd.

>
> > The problem is that the current *access* methods seem to be
> >   "choose one and only one"
> > while I need
> >   "additively combine several"
>
>Right.
>
> > There are several avenues (in my order of preference)
> > 1) make a new block, say "access_additive" that adds to 
> >    rather than replacing the wildmats
> > 2) make a new key in the existing access block, that 
> >    adds to, rather than replaces the wildmats
> >     (will this work in the current readers.conf ??)
> > 3) make a key that calls a program to call an external program
> >    to compute the wildmat and asign it dynamically.
>
> > In nnrpd for version 2.2.2 we currently a #3 style hack,
> > but I think #1 might be better.
>
>Of those, we're going to get #3 eventually, but #3 is the most complicated
>for the local administrator since they're generally going to have to write
>some code to use it.  Of the rest, I like the idea of #2, and yes, I think
>it should work even with the current parsing infrastructure.  It should be
>possible to make it work in the new parsing infrastructure as well.

Hum ... but I'm worried about #2 working.
Suppose I have two access blocks for the a particular ID
Does the current nnrpd 
    a) evaluate the first access block and then evaluate the
       second access block, having it overwrite the first access
       block's settings?
or
    b) search for the last ID match (in this case the second access block)
       and evaluate just that?

If option (a) occurs then #2 above will work, and that is what I will
work on hacking in to nnrpd.
HOWEVER, if nnrpd uses option (b) then #2 will never work!
and I'll have to follow #1

Any additional pointers you could give on this matter would be
much appreciated.

Regards,
Todd Olson
Cornell University