Plugin project proposal

[Zhanna Tsitkova]

A general idea of what the plugin interface writer and plugin  
interface implementation writer are  expected to do is described in  
section
http://k5wiki.kerberos.org/wiki/Projects/Plugin_support_improvements#Consequences
One can see that all complexity of the framework is shifted into the  
manager and loader.

So, the plugin interface writer's responsibility becomes as simple as  
writing the code similar to

:header:
typedef struct {
int version;
char *plugin_name;
krb5_error_code (*fn1)(...);
} plugin_X;
krb5_error_code plugin_X_fn1(plhandle handle, ...);

:source:
krb5_error_code plugin_X_fn1(plhandle handle, ...)
{
plugin_X* api = (plugin_X*) handle.api;
api->plugin_X_fn1(...);
return err;
}

The example of plugin interface implementation writer experience is  
given in the message below.

Zhanna

On Jul 15, 2010, at 4:26 PM, Zhanna Tsitkova wrote:

> Well, in the proposed implementation the plugin module writer would  
> do the following:
>
> plhandle
> plugin_pwd_qlty_krb_create()
> {
> plhandle handle;
> plugin_pwd_qlty* api = malloc(sizeof(plugin_pwd_qlty));
> api->version = 1;
> ...
> api->pwd_qlty_init    = _plugin_pwd_qlty_init;
> api->pwd_qlty_check   = _plugin_pwd_qlty_check;
> api->pwd_qlty_cleanup = _plugin_pwd_qlty_clean;
> handle.api = api;
> return handle;
> }
>
> and then define each of the methods:
>
> static kadm5_ret_t
> _plugin_pwd_qlty_check(...l)
> {
> // do actual quality validation and return
> }
>
> In my opinion this approach is friendlier to the writer of the  
> plugin implementation. The writer can concentrate on the particular  
> functionality without caring the burden of other implementations.
>
> Thanks,
> Zhanna

Zhanna Tsitkova
tsitkova at mit.edu