Re: [Mldonkey-users] Re: User Management in 2.03

[Sergio Bayarri Gausi]

Hello,

> Or maybe three or four people sharing an apartement with one DSL
> connection. Why should everyone compete with the others by using a
> seperate mldonkey/emule?

Yep! That's just my case right now. We have 3 computers at home.

1. A P3 800Mhz, running Linux and connected to the DSL modem/router. It
also has a wireless adapter and works as an access point.
2. My computer (Linux :P)
3. My sister's computer (Windows)

1, 2 and 3 are connected using a wireless network. 1 is used as gateway to
the internet.

I use to run my mldonkey client on the Linux server. My sister would also
like to download stuff from the edonkey network, and she uses emule on her
Windows for this purpose.

I'm sure we would both benefit from a multiuser mldonkey client. The Linux
server runs 24h/7d, while my sister has to power off her computer from
time to time. Sometimes she lets it running all night because she wants to
download something "important".

I'd rather have her using the mldonkey client running on the Linux server.
That would save bandwith (mldonkey and emule wouldn't have to compete for
the DSL bandwith), and my sister would not have to leave the computer
running frequently, as the Linux server is up 24h/7d. And I'm sure we
would both have better (overall) download rates for the files we are
currently downloading.

About separate incoming dirs, why not inspire ourselves from the Unix
behaviour? Every user would have (check /etc/passwd):

1. a login
2. an encrypted password
3. an uid (it's easier -and smaller speaking of memory- to link data to a
number than a string)
4. a gecos (name) field
5. a "home directory" (=incoming dir), which should be chmod'ed to 777
(let's call it $HOME :P)

This data could be saved in a new ini file (users.ini?)

When a user commits his files, they are copied to $HOME. Since the
directory has 0777 permissions, this can be done even if the mldonkey
client runs with another uid.

For example:

user1:blablabla:1:User 1:/home/user1/mldonkey-incoming

Every user can get his files easily using ftp, web, scp or even a samba
share.

If we want some more privacy, then chmod 0711 /home/user1 and 0733
/home/user1/mldonkey-incoming. While files will still be copied to that
directory, people won't be able to browse its contents.

The user could also change his commit directory to whatever he wants. If
he sets it to /home/user1/this_is_my_private_directory and /home/user1 is
not readable (0711 mode) then it would be hard for anyone to guess it.

I hope I made myself clear :)

Of course, if the user hasn't properly set up his incoming dir (0733
mode), when a commit is done the files should not be commited and an error
message telling the user to set up the correct permissions should be
shown. The same applies if the directory doesn't exist.

Again, this could be a very useful feature for a lot of people. The
scenario described by Sven is quite common. In these scenarios, mldonkey
would win for sure because it's more useful to use a shared mldonkey
client on a single computer than using two separate clients (mldonkey
versus emule) on two separate computers, both fighting for bandwith. And
let's not forget that Emule is not multiuser, so... who would win this
"round"? ;)

Greetings,

Sergio