Alpine Configuration Framework
The Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF) is a mvc-style application for configuring an Alpine device. The primary focus is for a web interface - ACF's main goal is to be a light-weight MVC "webmin".
Why Haserl + Lua
Other competitors in the arena were Webmin, Ruby on Rails, PHP with templates.
A full webmin (Perl), RoR or PHP implementation each require several MB of installed code, and can have very slow startup times, especially when used in "cgi" mode. After evaluating many options, we found that Lua has the following advantages:
- It is small (typically ~200KB of compiled code)
- It compiles and runs much faster than PHP, Perl or Ruby
- It provides a "normal" scripting language with features similar to PHP, perl, java, awk, etc.
Haserl + Lua provides a 'good enough' toolset to build a full-featured web application.
Why ACF is MVC
The MVC design pattern is used to separate presentation information from control logic. By MVC we mean:
- Model - code that reads / writes a config file, starts / stops daemons, or does other work modifying the router.
- View - code that formats data for output
- Controller - code that glues the two together
Note the lack of words like: HTML, XML, OO, AJAX, etc. The purpose of ACF's MVC is simply to separate the configuration logic from the presentation of the output.
The flow of a single transaction is:
start ->
execute requested function in controller,
optionally reading/writing a file using functions in the model ->
execute the view to format the output ->
end
Every transaction follows this pattern. For ACF developers, the focus should be on getting a model that does a proper job of abstracting the config file into useable entities and then building a controller that presents useable "actions" based on the model. The presentation layer should be last on the priority list.
For good background information on what ACF attempts to do, please see Terence Parr's paper "Enforcing Strict Model-View Separation in Template Engines" at
http://www.cs.usfcs.edu or the local copy of the pdf.
Starting ACF
The easiest way to start ACF is to run the setup-webconf script. This script will install mini-httpd, create a certificate, and start mini-httpd in HTTPS mode. WARNING - This will give anyone on the network access to your machine. The script will also install the two packages that are necessary for basic ACF: acf-core and acf-alpine-baselayout. To view ACF, simply browse to your machine (https://<hostname>/).
Alternately, you can manually install ACF and your web server. Once again, the two critical ACF packages are acf-core and acf-alpine-baselayout. The ACF packages will install to /usr/share/acf. You can configure your web server to give access to /usr/share/acf/www and run cgi scripts from /usr/share/acf/www/cgi-bin, and you should be able to view ACF.
If you would like to play with other ACF packages, we recommend you install the acf-apk-tools package. This package will allow you to install / delete other packages using ACF. You can then load any other acf-* packages you are interested in.
The two default login / password combinations are 'alpine' / 'test123' and 'foo' / 'test123'. 'alpine' is given ADMIN rights and 'foo' is given USER rights. We recommend you change your login id and password by selecting 'User Management'.
ACF Developer's Guides
- mvc.lua reference - mvc.lua is the core of ACF
- mvc.lua example - build a simple (command-line) application
- acf www-controller reference - ACF www application functions
- acf www-controller example - webify the above examples
- ACF_how_to_write - Step by step howto for writing acfs
- ACF core principles - Things that are standard across the application
- LPOSIX - Documentation for the Lua Posix functions
- ACF Libraries - Document the libraries and common functions
- Writing ACF Views - Guide for writing a view
- Writing ACF Controllers - Guide for writing a controller
- Writing ACF Models - Guide for writing a model
ACF Layout
ACF has support for multiple skins.
Only a few skins are available. Feel free to contribute in programming css-stylesheets for ACF.
Howto contribute
First download ACF using svn or installing available acf's using apk_add.
Easiest is if you download latest Alpine ISO, boot a box on that and then run 'setup-alpine' and 'setup-webconf -a' that way you get a running environment fast and easy!
Some example skins are available
- /usr/share/acf/www/skins/ice/
- /usr/share/acf/www/skins/snow/
Make a new skin-folder
mkdir /usr/share/acf/www/skins/myskin
Create a css file called as the folder.
touch /usr/share/acf/www/skins/myskin/myskin.css
Now you can start editing your myskin.css.
If you have ACF running on a computer, you can browse to this ACF-page and switch to your knew skin (called myskin) and see the results of your changes.
Pack your myskin-folder, containing your css-file (and images, if there is any).
Send this patch to acf@lists.alpinelinux.org (Note: Don't forget to subscribe before sending your patch)
ACF Modules
Networking
Networking related modules.
DHCP server
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure isc-dhcp.
|
- Edit global settings
- Create/Edit/Delete subnets and hosts
- View leases
DNS
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure tinydns.
|
- View current DNS configuration/information
- Create/Edit/Delete domain files
- Per user and per role permissions
DNScache
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure dnscache.
|
- Edit configuration
- Edit allowed clients
- Create/Edit/Delete DNS server entries
DNSmasq
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure dnsmasq.
|
- Edit configuration
- View leases
- View logfile
Chrony
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure chrony.
|
- Edit configuration
- View logfile
NTPD
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure timeserver openntpd.
|
- Edit configuration
- View logfile
SSH
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure openssh.
|
- View connections
- Edit configuration
- Edit authorized keys
Fetchmail
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure fetchmail.
|
- Edit global settings
- Create/Edit/Delete mailbox/domain entries
Samba
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure samba.
|
- Edit configuration
- Create/Edit/Delete shares
- Join domain
TCPproxy
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure tcpproxy.
|
- Edit configuration
- Create/Edit/Delete STMP Proxy entries and files
Firewall
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure shorewall.
|
- Edit configuration
- View logfile
OpenVPN
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure openvpn.
|
- Create/Edit/Delete configs
- View logfile
IPsec
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure ipsec-tools.
|
- Edit configuration
- Upload/View/Delete certificates
- View logfile
IPtables
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure iptables.
|
- Edit configuration (rules-save file)
- Create/Edit/Delete chains and rules
NHRP
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure opennhrp.
|
Zebra and BGP
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure quagga.
|
- View routes
- Edit configuration
Applications
Application related modules
Certificate Authority
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Generate / sign certifiates using openssl.
|
- Edit configuration
- View/Create/Upload CA certificate
- Edit certificate defaults
- Generate/View/Delete/Approve requests
- View/Download/Renew/Revoke certificates
- Generate and download CRLs
Web Proxy
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure squid.
|
- Edit configuration
- Edit user list
- Edit associated files
Content Filter
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure dansguardian.
|
Snort
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure snort.
|
- View alerts
- Edit configuration
Gnats
| Status: |
Work in progress
|
| Summary: |
Configure gnats.
|
- Edit configuration
- Report a bug
- Query problem reports
System
System/Other related modules
Interfaces
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Local interface management
|
- Create/Edit/Delete interfaces
- Bring up/down interfaces and restart networking
General health
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Show status on your running system.
|
- Show system status
- Show storage status
- Show network status
- Graph network activity
- Show modules status
- Show proc status
User Management
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
ACF User management
|
- Edit self
- Create/Edit/Delete ACF users
- View roles for user
Roles Management
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
ACF Roles management
|
- View own permissions
- Create/Edit/Delete ACF roles
- View all possible permissions
Packages
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Manage system packages (apk-tools)
|
- View/Delete loaded packages
- View/Install available packages
- Edit configuration
Modules
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Manage system modules
|
- View loaded modules
- Edit/Reload modules file
Startup
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Manage system startup
|
- View/Edit service startup sequence
Cron
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Manage periodic jobs (cron)
|
- Edit configuration
- Create/Edit/Delete periodic jobs
System logging
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Configure syslog.
|
Logfiles
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Manage logfiles.
|
- View/Tail/Download/Delete logfiles
Skins
| Status: |
Ready for use
|
| Summary: |
Switch ACF skin
|
Local Backups
| Status: |
Ready for betatest
|
| Summary: |
Saves your settings to floppy/usb/other media (lbu).
|
- Show unsaved changes
- Edit configuration
- Commit/Save changes to media
- Select backup archives
- Generate and download overlay
DevTools
DevTools is a (set of) ACF(s) that could come in handy when developing ACF.
SVN status
| Status: |
Ready for use
|
| Summary: |
Different information/functions related to the SVN-tree
|
- svn status (Shows whats changed since last 'svn update')
- svn diff (Shows difference on your computer and on svn-server)
- svn log (Shows the changelog 1 week back in time)
- svn update (Fetch all available updates)
ToDo
VPN
Needs to be split into an administrative end for letting people connect to you (rogue warriors,personal laptop size connectivity) and VPN connectivity to other sites (remote office or location). These two are configured differently.
Still not started modules.
Dialup
Start/Stop Dialup connection
Dialup/PPPoE
Configure Dialup/PPP/PPPoE connectivity. Maybe other Internet connections that aren't ethernet (handled in Interfaces).
Diagnostic
Stats/Resource use/maybe graphs-rrd. Ability to run ping command.