Developers of Sympa

[Guillaume Rousse <address@concealed>]

Le 13/03/2013 17:09, IKEDA Soji a écrit :
> This is a matter I wished to discuss.
>
> On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:07:22 +0100
> Guillaume Rousse <address@concealed> wrote:
>
> > Le 08/03/2013 12:21, David Verdin a écrit :
> > > > About terminology: I love "robot" or "bot", but as Guillaume pointed
> > > > out, the word tend to refer to the active agents such as Web spiders.
> > > > # As Sympa "robot" is passive agent having (in general) multiple
> > > > # virtual hosts for e-mail, Web and so on, it is not virtual host
> > > > # itself.
> > > > Anything more better might be.
> > > What about "service"? The Sympa software is the engine allowing to
> > > operate several list services.
> > It's a bit too much generic IMHO.
> >
> > A quick look at current code quickly show than 'domain' is already
> > heavily used a synonym:
> > - the attribute in a Sympa::List object used to set robot value
> > everywhere it is needed is called 'domain':
> > Sympa::Log::db_stat_log({'robot' => $self->{'domain'}...
>
> The "domain" of robot is essentially an identifier to determine the
> path of robot.conf, SYSCONFDIR/<domain>/robot.conf.
>
> robot.conf (and sympa.conf for defaults) can contain some other
> domain names: "host" parameter for e-mail domain (by default it is
> "domain"), "wwsympa_url" for Web interface URL, "soap_url" for SOAP
> interface URL.
>
> Each List shares "domain" parameter with its Robot.  However, List
> can have particular "host" parameter (by default it is Robot's
> "host").
>
> Briefly speaking, "domain" parameter is just an identifier of Robot.
OK, I was confused then.

If I understand your explanations correctly, a robot is just a way to 
override specific part of default sympa server configuration, for a 
given set of lists, right ? In this regard, this is quite similar to a 
virtual host for a web server: different document root, access policy, 
log files, etc... So why not call them virtual host, or virtual servers, 
in this case ?

The we'd have the following hierarchy of concept:
- a single sympa server/host/instance manages one to many virtual
  servers/hosts/instances
- a virtual server manages one to many lists
- lists may be grouped into families

Does it make sense ?
--
Guillaume Rousse
INRIA, Direction des systèmes d'information
Domaine de Voluceau
Rocquencourt - BP 105
78153 Le Chesnay
Tel: 01 39 63 58 31

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