[freeside-devel] Anybody here yet?

Ivan Kohler ivan at sisd.com
Thu Apr 6 17:52:28 PDT 2000


On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 07:47:54PM -0700, Scott Nelson wrote:
> 
> Hi Ivan,
> 
> Did you see the news bit about a version of MySQL being GPL'ed?  cool eh.
>
> Is there a TODO file for the project yet?

Yep, 800+ lines of it.  It is included with the distribution.  I've
attached it to the end of this message. 

> Maybe we can start a list...
> 
> 
> * Interface redesign - (scott/ultima networks)

Jason Spence <thalakan at technologist.com> is interested in working on this
also - I gave him your email address and told him to subscribe to the
mailing list (this was before the -devel list was created).

> 	- possibly using javascript/frames as tools
> 	- need to keep fully HTML compliant
> 	- hopefully develop a version which degrades 'nicely' to Lynx
> compatibility
> 
> * redoing 'Domain' concept
> 	- potentially using Critical Path as an example

Some of the preliminary work on this is done.  Everything falls nicely
into place once I remove the concept of a "default" domain.

> * Postscript printing for bills
> 	- including ease of importing logo for ISP's

I'm hoping to find some sort of general-purpose PostScript templating
system to use.

> * Documentation
> 	- has anyone ever considered asking a College Technical Writing
> class to do Open Source documentation?  I know there is a class at Univ. or
> Oregon that I went to...I'll do some digging and see if I can find someone
> to get in touch with...this might be a really cool source of documentation.

Cool... let me know.

Okay, here's a big long TODO file.  One of the things I'll try to do soon
is go through this and categorize and prioritize things.

$Id: TODO,v 1.38 1999/08/27 06:25:56 ivan Exp $

If you are interested in helping with any of these, please join the mailing
list (send a blank message to ivan-freeside-subscribe at sisd.com) to avoid 
duplication of effort.

---

> So is there anyway it could be setup to allow you to select a "primary
> service" from each package?  This service would be the one you were prompted
> for.  Could the signup server then be expanded to allow users to go into
> their package and "turn-on" the remaining non-primary services(using the
> primary account.)

take the GPL'ed whois proxy stuff at www.geektools.com and turn it into
intelligence for Net::Whois.

A web version of the fs_passwd stuff would be nifty.   

If you have Cistron authenticating directly from MySQL, you can replicate
in real-time instead of exporting periodically.  See 
<http://www.mysql.com/Manual_chapter/manual_Common_problems.html#Replication>.

these go in docs:
<http://www.sisd.com/freeside/list-archive/msg00546.html>, and
<http://www.sisd.com/freeside/list-archive/msg00554.html>

and http://www.sisd.com/freeside/list-archive/msg00423.html

> > 5: Is there anyway to get freeside to send a sysadmin a warning when a
> > credit card has expired?
No, but there should be.

Put this in the doc (quoting Mark Wells <mark at pc-intouch.com>):
>Of course, thanks to the sheer coolness of SQL and MyODBC, you can do
>whatever reports you want in basically whatever application you want.
>There's no need for Freeside itself to do any reports at all.

middle names and titles

On Wed, Jul 07, 1999 at 01:11:40PM -0400, Frank Nazario wrote:
> Playing and entering information to Freeside i encountered the following
> missing reports:
> 
> View Customers by Agent
> 
> View Pending Invoices
> 

grep 'uncomment this to encrypt password immediately' site_perl/svc_acct.pm
Not to say that it shouldn't be a configurable option.

in site_perl/cust_main_invoice.pm (elsewhere?), error out if mydomain config file is gone
(at least until the idea of a default domain goes away)

FS::Record::qsearch does an eval every loop iteration (which is itself not
guaranteed to work across all DBD's and should be fixed).  This has got to be
slow.  Fix it.  (I think recent Perls might have a way to accept a variable
there, no eval needed?)

Could you have added /bin/sync, /sbin/shutdown, and /bin/halt to the
`shells' configuration file before importing, and removed them afterwords?
(even better if svc_acct.import did that automatically - it could just    
munge and restore @FS::svc_acct::shells... hmm.)

> BTW, Ivan, I am trying to verify in an additional database table that a
> particular user doesn't exist. This database is used to store email aliases a$
> additional POP boxes for our customers (kinda like AOL allows). I have toyed  
> with the idea of just writing the aliases to an email only svc_acct that
> doesn't write to the password file, but that isn't really how I want to do it.

Actually, I think that's a pretty good way to do it.  Cerkit contributed
support a little while back for svc_acct.pm and svc_acct.export for
multiple export targets.  It needs to be cleaned up and documented, which
I'll try to get to soon.  For this to work correctly, the svc_acct_sm
table should go away, along with the concept of a "default" domain.  

default setting for new packages should allow all agents to purchase them...
with a config file for the old behaviour

replace Term::Query  with Quiz::Question?

Check config file reading stuff from CPAN
 
Authorizenet module from CPAN!

<http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~leitner/mutt/faq.html> has a good y2k complience
statement!

    I'm hoping Freeside can support arbitrailly complex pricing plans
    because of a simple concept: all prices are perl expressions.  So if
    you use `19.95' for example, perl evalates that to be `19.95'.  But if
    you need to do a complex pricing scheme, you just need to write an
    appropriate perl expression, which will most likely pull data from the
    database to return pricing.  Some things will already log to SQL; for
    example most RADIUS servers can or have a patch available.  Getting
    Freeside to bill based on any sort of data then becomes a matter of
    importing the data into the database.
 
    There are some issues involved with pro-rating, partial month charges,
    that sort of thing.  Expressions will need a standard way to have the
    applicable time/data ranges passed to them.  Also the expressions are
    currently running under the Safe perl module, and the opmask might not
    be right in all situations.  I'll try to spend some time working on
    this if you are using it.

> 2. can customers view their bills on-line.                                    
 
Not yet; it needs to be proxied from Freeside to a customer web server in
a secure way using something not completely unlike the fs_passwd,
fs_passwdd, fs_passwd_server trio.


> Lastly, if someone over pays on an invoice, the credit part does not flow
> over to other invoices..

The total balance flows over correctly, but individual payments don't.
The code you're looking for is in FS::cust_pay::insert

The question of what to do with overpayments that don't have another 
invoice to flow into (yet.. or possibly not) is still an open one.    The
legacy system Freeside replaced long ago had a separate place for this
(payments waiting for an invoice) for each customer, and it gave our
bookeeper fits.


option to relax username uniqueness in favor of username+domain or mail/shell
vs. radius to ease import for isp's with namespace problems or who buy others.

do i have to store anything for radius realms besides regular radius attributes
(which are handled fine now)?

warn or complain or something when invoice_from is empty (and we use it)

Right now Freeside uses the `freq' field of a package definition as a 
number of months.  The specific section of code you're looking for is in  
FS::cust_main::bill:
        
        #change this bit to use Date::Manip?
        #$sdate=$cust_pkg->bill || time;
        #$sdate=$cust_pkg->bill || $time;
        $sdate = $cust_pkg->bill || $cust_pkg->setup || $time;
        my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year) =
          (localtime($sdate) )[0,1,2,3,4,5];
        $mon += $part_pkg->getfield('freq');
        until ( $mon < 12 ) { $mon -= 12; $year++; }
        $cust_pkg->setfield('bill',
          timelocal($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year));
        $cust_pkg_mod_flag = 1;
  
..and when I went poking for this, looks like it tells us just what needs   
to be done!  Hehehe...

Date::Manip can handle cool things like "+ 1 month" (actually the current
case of /^(\d+)$/ would have to be added as a special case of "+ $1 
month") and "+ 30 days" (what you need) and even "+ 5 business days" !


On Wed, Apr 28, 1999 at 08:38:16PM +0000, Kristian Hoffmann wrote:
> I can't quite seem to figure out how this exporting works.  From what I
> understand, when you run svc_acct.export, it rewrites the /etc/passwd,
> /etc/shadow, etc. files.  Is this only for initial setups with the
> export hooks being in the pm's?
 
You can use both, or just one method.  The configuration files control    
this.  One of the things in the TODO is to take out the last few things   
that aren't customizable wrt this and put them in config files.

http://www.daemonnews.org/199905/user-mgmt.html

Term::Query doesn't install out of the box from CPAN.  Fix it (and get it 
submitted upstream!), or remove requirement from bin/svc_acct.import and
bin/svc_acct_sm.import and take it out of the install instructions.

use this cool link to explain the Freeside API
ftp://cpan.nas.nasa.gov/pub/perl/CPAN/doc/FMTEYEWTK/easy_objects.html

Multiple tax rates by geographic region (county, state, and county) are   
supported; just choose View/Edit tax rates from the main menu.

Multiple tax rates by package are not (yet) supported.

On Wed, Jul 07, 1999 at 12:13:36PM -0400, Shaun Batterton wrote:
> How would you handle something like multiple tax rates and multiple   
> states?  For example in Connecticut, they just changed computer and/or
> data processing services to 3% (whatever that is), and everything else
> is 6%.


> Second, when trying to add a new user I get two types of errors; first one
> is when I place an e-mail address and select the "submit," Freeside
> complains with "Error: Unknown local account (specified literally)"
.  
You probably put a (local) email address in for email invoices.  Freeside
stores these as references to the database records, so (for example) they
follow username changes.
.
I'm guessing you put in the email address that you were creating, and got
that error because it didn't exist yet.  Sounds like a buglet to me.  I'll
try to fix that soon; in the meantime you can add the invoicing email 
address afterwords.

Postgres `money' time sucks rocks anyway.  I'll probably just require 6.5
and use the numeric types, which *finally* work right.
On Sat, Apr 24, 1999 at 12:52:00PM -0700, Mr. Poet wrote:
> Software error:
> Error creating cust_bill record: ERROR: parser:
> attribute 'charged' is of type 'money' but expression
> is of type 'float8' You will need to rewrite or cast 
> the expression ! Check updated but unbilled packages 
> for customer1
.
Postgres `money' time sucks rocks anyway.  I'll probably just require 6.5
and use the numeric types, which *finally* work right (well, according to 
the web site, anyway).
.
In the mean-time, this could probably be fixed with the reverse of        
the kludge in FS::Record::new.  This removes `$' and `,' from money fields
coming out of the database.  Something which fixed up the data so Postgres
was happy with it could go in FS::Record::_quote, for data going into the
database.

our data display problem might be a Freeside problem wrt not using 
Oracle-compatible DBI syntax (uses the return value from $sth->execute as
a number of rows).  Fixing this is on the TODO.

hooks for arbitrary commands out of configuration files
svc_acct.pm svc_acct_sm.pm etc.

Add this to a FAQ, along with doing it for middle names:


>  What I'm finding difficult is how to easily 
> customize fields.  For example, I am trying to add a "middle name" field
> to the Customer Edit, view, etc.  If I'm going about it right, it appears
> I have to edit the cust_main.cgi under edit and edit/process and the
> site_perl/cust_main.pm, as well as other things.  Perhaps you could shed
> some light on the best way of doing this.

You have the basic idea.  To implement that completely, I would:
- Add the new field to bin/fs-setup for new users
- Document the field in htdocs/docs/schema.html
- Document the change in a new file, htdocs/docs/upgrade4.html
* Run bin/dbdef-create
* Add the new field to edit/cust_main.cgi and edit/process/cust_main.cgi

For bonus points, I'd grep around for the various bits which use "$first 
$last" or "$last, $first" and replace them with a method call in cust_main.pm,
 , like search/cust_main.cgi

document security model:
Don't forget about Apache usernames - since, via the mapsecrets file, each
user can login to the SQL database with a different username and
password, you can utitilize the security model of the SQL database as
well.  Also, each username here can point to a different configuration
directory where you could store user-specific configuration info.  Then   
you could link each username to one-to-many agents. 
(The web demo works using a trivial version of this.)

Yes, queue processing or the equivalent via checkpoint fields on various  
talbes (which you pick up via a pretty simple SELECT) would be really 
nice too.

default (and ordering) state/county/country config file
expand the
cust_main_county table to provide a preferred ordering, so the most common
entries would be at the top of the selection box.  automatically, based on
recent selections?

hmm... maybe svc_acct__shell should check off the legal shells list if
applicable?  yeah... cool.

payinfo field should me much larger than 16


[Mon Apr 12 20:31:21 1999] [error] [Mon Apr 12 20:31:21 1999] null: Error closing true: Broken pipe at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/FS/cust_main.pm line 615.

javascript (yuck!) "are you sure?" confirmation on cancelations, etc.
(view/cust_pkg and view/svc_*)

get rid of time2str("%D") which formats dates in a non-y2k-safe looking fashion
(all the actual date handling uses UNIX timestamps and is fine)

uncomment expire in view/cust_pkg.cgi and find the expire cron from fsold

(Test this)
one-time/per-customer/? changes in rates and descriptions ('remembered
invoices'): implement by creating a new package on the fly... but it isn't 
associated with any agent types so it won't show up for other customers to buy.
(but also... make sure they go away when the customer does! - need this? :
 one-off package edits! : need a cust_pkgs or cust_part_pkgs or something table,
 with custnum and partpkg (like type_pkgs)
(what happens if you hit "custom pricing" but the pricing is already custom?)

Lay out any remaining ugly forms better.

remove "records identical" warning?  gets in the way of more important stuff.
or fix logic which tries to update identical records??
1.2 should be quiet enough that the error log is useful, hopefully.

Postgres has a maximum column length of 31 characters (but see NAMEDATALEN in
postgres_ext.h).  part_svc has columns like: svc_acct__radius_Attribute_flag
(22 characters!)  It seems that stuff over the limit is silently ignored,
so we get 4 characters back.  So, Radius_Attributes are max 13 characters with
stock Postgres.  see rfc2138 for what's affected
What's a good fix?  (besides recompiling postgres with NAMEDATALEN 64)
(mysql has a 64 character max column length.  others?)

[Mon Mar 29 06:57:56 1999] -e: Use of uninitialized value at /usr/lib/perl5/Date/Format.pm line 333.
(when sending mail in cust_main.pm::bill or svc_domain.pm)

look at DBIx::Recordset!  (and Tie::DBI, and...)

undefined conf/lpr gives this uninfomative error:
[Fri Feb 26 16:42:36 1999] bill.cgi: Can't do bidirectional pipe at
/usr/lib/per
l5/site_perl/FS/cust_main.pm line 629.
[Fri Feb 26 16:42:38 1999] bill.cgi: Error closing : Broken pipe at
/usr/lib/per
l5/site_perl/FS/cust_main.pm line 631.
So give a meaningful error!

password and slipip stuff in svc_acct.pm store need to be split into two fields or something, so the silliness in svc_acct.pm and svc_acct.export with looking at the data to decide what to do with it can be fixed

i10n: Apache::Language

Apache::Session?  Other useful Apache::* ?

email invoices are only sent for the BILL payby.  If setup, should statements
(since they're not invoices) be sent for COMP and CARD as well?

$cgi->keywords is causing the (hard to trace) error:
   	Use of uninitialized value at (eval 5) line 5

edit/cust_main.cgi gives an uninformative error message:
> Can't call method "agentnum" without a package or object reference at   
> /usr/local/apache-ssl/htdocs/freeside/edit/cust_main.cgi line 116.
if there are no agents.

(is this missing on any web screens?  (easy with $cust_svc->label)
Add the ability for services to filter information up to the package level
for web screens, so you can select a particlar package based
on username or domain name, etc.

Allow a cancelled/suspended/active status from packages to bubble up to
the customer lists.  Put active, then suspended, then cancelled accounts.
Similar ordering on the package listing inside a single customer.

false laziness: edit/cust_main.cgi got some parts copied from edit/svc_acct.cgi
the web interface in general needs to be redone in a more abstract way.

false laziness: some of search/svc_acct_sm.cgi was copied to search/svc_domain.cgi.  but web interface in general needs to be rewritten in a mucho cleaner way.

Portability: in FS::Record, $sth->execute does not return a number of rows for all DBD's.  see man DBI

subroutine the where clause (eventually all SQL) as OO perhaps (has anyone done this?)

add a select method to FS::Record?

one-time/per-customer/? changes in rates and descriptions ('remembered
invoices'): implement by creating a new package on the fly... but it isn't 
associated with any agent types so it won't show up for other customers to buy.
(but also... make sure they go away when the customer does! - need this? :
 one-off package edits! : need a cust_pkgs or cust_part_pkgs or something table,
 with custnum and partpkg (like type_pkgs)
(what happens if you hit "custom pricing" but the pricing is already custom?)

You can't delete the stuff under administration yet.  Add this,
_including_ making sure the thing you are deleting is not in use!

add links on view/cust_main.cgi to setup services, like view/cust_pkg.cgi

FS::cust_pkg _require_'s FS::$svc, but this won't work with %FS::UID::callback
loading of configuration.  (pry need same idea, but will run immediately if
context allows).  Looks like error is masked by 'use FS::cust_svc' which in
turn 'use's FS::{svc_acct, svc_acct_sm, svc_domain}' which is now explicit
w/comments in source

Allow a cancelled/suspended/active status from packages to bubble up to
the customer lists.  Put active, then suspended, then cancelled accounts.
Similar ordering on the package listing inside a single customer.

svc_domain.pm mail sending uses Date::Format which doesn't seem to pick up 
correct timezone.

view/svc_domain.cgi needs to know the domain might be unaudited (cosmetic)

remove whois_hack set to 1 for svc_domain.pm?  add all known registries and
whois accordingly.
.us domains and others!
site_perl/svc_domain.cgi (hmm... or maybe should have a button?  or maybe svc_domain.pm should handle this) should set $whois_hack for non-internic domains, so you can add them...

turn on the depriciation warnings for [e]idiot in FS::CGI. Stop using [e]idiot
the last places it is (htdocs/search/ htdocs/misc/ htdocs/misc/process)

(test cust_main.pm with cybercash v2 and v3, especially with the callback
 stuff AND with mod_perl w/cybercash v2 kludge in package main)
(callback stuff should be eliminated by now)

bah, table/itable/*table in FS::CGI is silly.

doc Apache::AuthDBI as well
..
Provide sample httpd.conf files.

hey look: Tie::DBI!  Check that out.  Override its commit with something that
does perl-side caching for ? a performance improvement and as an emulation
layer to plug in f.ex mysql's atomic transactions
..
Record.pm uses does some non-portable DBI things.  MySQL and Pg seem fine.
Fix it anyway unless we migrate to Tie::DBI.

faq

cust_bill.pm uses '==' comparison on dates because they're currently ints

config file for allowed card types

write instructions for adding new services w/svc_Common.pm.  Get rid of all
places where svc_* tables are hardcoded (rename svc_acct_pop to part_pop so
we can do that)

test and document libapache-dbi-logger (woo!)

radius logfile parsing and perl expression check.

Fix in cust_bill BUGS: 
There is an off-by-one error in print_text which causes a visual error (Page 1
of 2 printed on some single-page invoices).

fields should be a method against a FS::Record or derived object, as well as
being something you can call as FS::Record::fields('tablename').  Might
even be able to handle both in the same routine (that would be neato).

Immediate removal of incorrectly entered check payments (can't take too
long to do this, or accounting is fubared).

Add code to move from one service to another (POP to SLIP/PPP, etc.).
This _should_ be possible by working off the rules in part_svc rather than
hardcoding anything in.  The rules in part_svc may need some elaboration,
perhaps.

Use ut_ FS::Record methods in all derived classes (possibly some from dbdef?... eventually all from dbdef??? - but then `dbdef-create' would be impossible as there would be metadata we couldn't ask the backend for.  hmm.)

(bring back from fsold, ) Generalize config-sending stuff and make more configurable.
Expand the HylaFAX interface (also possibly generalize for other fax
softwar ie .comfaxe); allow things like arbitrary faxes of sales
literature, specific troubleshooting documents and so on.  Maybe even
allow users to do this (though that might not belong in Freeside).
misc/sendconfig.cgi
misc/process/sendconfig.cgi
Configure fax recipients via a separate box rather than using the finger
name or first+last from cust_main.

move all phone number logic out of Freeside - let HylaFAX or whatever
handle it.

soundex searches for customer name and company?  where are free soundex tools? (standard Text::Soundex duh) - I could have sworn I saw Text::Soundex on CPAN?!

should be able to link on some field in email alias (right now you can link
on username or domain with a fallback to svcnum)

generalize and make configurable new invoice printing scheme in FS::cust_main::collect (past due)

deleting an svc_domain should delete all associated svc_acct_sm records.
same with a svc_acct.

periodic password encrypter

Automated, configurable notification, suspension and cancellation of
defunct accounts.
...
expire cron job
...
Allow for a future setup date on accounts.

sub AUTOLOAD in FS::Record should warn? die? if used with a non-existant column
name?

edit (not just import, export and allow default/fixed) arbitrary radius stuff
in svc_acct
edit/svc_acct.cgi and edit/process/svc_acct.cgi should deal with arbitrary radius stuff

radius import should take DEFAULT entry and put it in /var/spool/freeside/conf/radius-default ; svc_acct.export should use it (and doc)

in UI, s/State/State\/Provence/go and s/County/County\/Locality/go

what else (besides l10n) for i18n? (money!)

audit htdocs/* for things that should be libraried and things that should be
new methods on the objects (need to do this before implementing a new UI)
all the big things are done

some places we die() where we should &FS::CGI::idiot (and perhaps vice-versa).
Decide based on whether or not the "error" should show up in logs.

all .cgi's should use standard header/footer and idiot() subroutines.  maybe HTML:: perl modules
for HTML creation.  Maybe Embperl or something along those lines.  ?

When running bin/bill, Fix this (Annoying but harmless):
Use of uninitialized value at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/FS/cust_pkg.pm line 99, <ADDRESS> chunk 4.
Use of uninitialized value at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/FS/cust_pkg.pm line 102, <ADDRESS> chunk 4.
Use of uninitialized value at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/FS/cust_pkg.pm line 105, <ADDRESS> chunk 4.

all cgi (but internal to the isp) places where package names are listed should also have
comment (like agent_type)

clean up $recref and other silliness and use -> calls where possible, or
one other alternative.  clean up everything else.
should FS::Record use Tie::Hash?  That would be very clean, but where do we
store the other information?  Maybe you could ask any FS::Record object for a
tied hash?

change all file access from regular open(FILE,) stuff to OO, because of 
problems scoping and passing filehandles like that.

the web interface should create a new object and use it instead of a blank
form for new records.  the create method of svc_ objects should set defaults
(from part_svc).

sub check in man FS::table_name should be rewriteen.  Get rid of $recref
stuff.  Make sure all fields that refer to other database are checked.

Integration with signup disks (are there any free ones?  Netscape?).

One-button cancel (+refund) for lusers who can't get online.

Keep information on virtual web servers (hostname, IP, host machine,
directory, etc.) and export this information for importation into the ISPs
web farm. 

Remove requirement that the first mail alias be the catchall?  Still make
sure only one catchall per domain is defined in any case, of course. 

Ability to move cust_pkg records from one customer to another? (proably
will need to cancel the old and create a new like when we move services
between packages). 

Auto-increment expired cards one year, and try again?

More non-US stuff - zip codes, country codes, foreign currencies, etc.

cust_refund.{cgi.pm} need to do cards xaxtions.  (now we only have cust_credit)

Nicer set of integrated reporting possibilities, like weekly sales totals
by customer, package, agent, referral, etc., aging reports sorted by lots
of different things, and so on.

Client/server setup for users to modify their own passwords, shells, etc,
via passwd or secure web interface (prelminary passwd/chfn/chsh
replacement done).  Complicated by the fact that we don't want to allow
incoming connections to the machine running Freeside, so we probably need
to have a daemon on each external shell or web machine that is contacted
by the Freeside machine.  Be very very careful for both traditional
security issues and DoS problems. 

An extension of the above to allow users to modify selected parts of their
own information, order and cancel services.  A web interface for new
customers.

Expand domain name stuff to house all domain information.  Export
named.boot/named.conf (primary and secondary) and named.{domain} files.
Add more registries (not just InterNIC's com org net edu)

Nice postscript paper invoices, rather than current ASCII invoices.

think about race-condititions in FS::Record and derived ->check ->insert
and so on, uid and username checks in svc_acct, etc.

Move to rsync over ssh file exportation rather than scp.

check 'n fix the proactive password checker. (cracklib?)

refunds of "BILL" payments: generate pseudo-check.

write batch senders and batch parsers for the different credit card processors
people use/
More CC processors/methods.

you should be able to fiddle the setup date in cust_pkg. (at least initially)

delete options in administration section

write a generic batch senders and batch parsers.

need a way to override svc_acct export on a per-machine basis; just use config files based on machine name i suppose; document that. (no, import desync_hosts
type stuff from cerkit)
...
add a table with column of export services (passwd, shadow, master.passwd, .qmail file update, dns update, etc.) and rows machine groups and whether or not to export that (and any necessary parameters).  wasn't matt (vunderkid, not matt at michweb) working o

n this?  find him?  each machine goes in a group of its own as well as a group based on function.  add a table with only svcpart and machine group.  now, when you import from each machine, it can get its own accounts with one svcpart and universal account

s with another svcpart.  (though that does make the username duplicate checking more interesting)

you should be able to get column types as a method against an FS::Record object
as well as dbdef->table($table)->column($column)->type

move to perl module for fuzzy and soundex searching.

package view needs to list extraneous services; we need to prevent the
creation of them so this never happens (and mark it as such in the source)
(the creation problem should be fixed - though they will still happen if people
fsck around in the data manually, so list them anyway)

add attribute dictionary to fs-setup as a menu, plus analyze users file to
decide automatically

Check for and report on duplicate billing accounts (cust_main, though many
will have a need for these so probably don't disable them outright.)

create a ->warn as well as a ->check method for all FS::table classes?
(see above)

something to automate making a release and updating the web demo

export a debian-style (also redhat and?) /etc/group file aswell!

svc_acct_sm.import qmail import should pull in recipientmap people too.

.pm's like svc_acct.pm which need to do time-consuming things like ssh remotely
should fork and do them in a child.

i18n/l10n: take ALL messages and catalog them in english.txt or in database or something, so we can eventually go int'l.  int'l currency support would be a help aswell.

get some of { city, county, state, zip } from the missing bits if
possible (where can i get the data to do this?  usps.gov?)

additional interfaces (perltk?  java?)

Put the GPL notice in all files.

integrate w/IDEA's signup server

$cust_bill->owed database field to be eliminated, replaced by a method call
that calculates on the fly.  make sure to grep for ->(get|set)field('owed') 
same for cust_credit->credited

Export quota information.

move all configuration to a central place.  maybe in blob's in the
database.  maybe even things like the code to execute when a username is
changed can be in there, so less of the distributed scripts change between
different sites.

Implement setup and recurring fees as Safe perl expressions rather than
numbers, to allow for variable-rate services.  Backwards compatibility is
obtained because { 43 } in perl is still 43.  :)  Define API to pass
starting and ending dates and any other necessary data to expression
(fees are currently evaluated as Safe expressions but more work needs to
be done to define an opmask for various needs, write examples
(usage-based billing, etc.) and so on).
...
Add the ability to modify the next billing date in cust_pkg, and take
appropriate action.  This will allow the implementation of pro-rate/1st of
the month billing as well as the ability to manually fiddle with
anniversary dates in cust_pkg, so you can sync a customer's anniversary
date even if you're using anniversary billing (manually or automatically).
(now with above, we need to have a way to automatically pro-rate /^(\d+)$/
charges - anything more complicated should figure it out itself given
starting and ending dates [document that!])
...
Daily Radius log parsing into database; other logfile formats?
...
Callbacks to enforce hourly limits on accounts (suspend until the end of
the billing period?), for those who limit customers rather than tack on
extra charges.

Flag packages (part_pkg) as taxable or non/taxable as some ISPs (for
example) need to charge tax on equipment but not service (separate flags
for setup and recurring fee... or perhaps a setup_tax, setup_notax,
recur_tax and recur_notax fees, and possibly something more flexible if
there is need).

Allow for a variable number of invoices for customers who need multiple
copies.

Add a mail alias service with table svc_acct (not domain mail aliasing
which is domain with svc_acct_sm)

(bring back from fsold) Change customer comment field from its current kludge to something more
workable.

Better work orders with more information.  Should eventually open a ticket
when we have such a thing.
edit/svc_wo.cgi
edit/process/svc_wo.cgi
Call tracking and trouble tickets.

More accoutability for complimentary accounts: approval, expiration, term
(no more than x months in advance) and notification.
Flag particular users (or all users, for that matter) as having their
passwords hidden and/or locked from users of Freeside (maybe need Freeside
security levels first?). 
...
Better Freeside-level configurable access, for those ISP's who have
employees they can't trust.  Right now you're "stuck" with setting up
.htaccess stuff yourself.  This should really just be integrated. 

configuration/setup should get web interface
...
/usr/local/etc/freeside should be configurable
...
(probably as part of some automated installation process?)

This requires some serious magic in FS::Record:
ok, if date_type in fs-setup is to be something besides int,
now we need to create wrappers
for them so they behave identically across RDBMS's, ie date pops out as as
UNIX timestamp (or an object of some sort? maybe even a blessed $obj which
is a string not a hashref for backwards compatibility?) and so on. (remember
to treat '0' as Not a Date instead of 1/1/70.

Add Freeside-level transactions for RDBMS's which don't support
transcations?  (Currently we assume a minimal RDBMS which has no rollback,
transactions or atomic updates).  Or just require a RDBMS that supports
rollback and/or atomic updates and get rid of the work-arounds?  The /rdb
interface had this kludge on top of it but is a technical dead-end in most
other ways, unless it can gain an SQL parser and DBD interface.
...
if i'm really bored, find the /rdb interface in fsold and port it to NoSQL,
and while I'm add it add interfaces for AnyDBM_File tied hash.. hmm.  Shouldn't
an FS::Record have something to do with a tied hash?  But we don't want
performance to go gaga... maybe something with commit to help out here?
...
Ok: FS::Record gives you a tied hash, and you get methods for commit, etc.

Better automated comparison of our CC records with processors (CyberCash,
at least, has not always had 100% accuracy, though recent versions are
much better) 

Expect or other pty based login check, where we actually connect to a
terminal server or shell machine and test logging in as the user (if we
are keeping a cleartext password for that user)  (This is something tech
support often needs for new customers)

Use cust_main table for pre-sales tracking as well?

Automatic commision report and check generation via freq and prog (to
become a Safe perl expression) fields in agent table, and possibly others.

Database and add a mailed-out date and method for disk/CD mailing, so a
customer can call and you can say, "sent on xx/xx/xx via {US Mail, Fedex,
UPS, etc}" 

Inventory tracking for physical items such as routers (for sale or
lease... probably doesn't make a difference in the ordering... but if you
cancel a router lease the inventory should come back.  hmm.)

-- Matt's wishlist ---

>From matt at michweb.net Fri Feb 20 16:39:53 1998
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:20:11 -0500
From: Matt Simerson <matt at michweb.net>
Reply-To: quadran-developer at netgoth.com
To: quadran-developer at netgoth.com
Subject: Re: Welcome to quadran-developer

>Whats it based on and what is it supposed to do?  I'm interested, but
>unfortunatly, I don't have that much time to help on the project (I'm busily
>working on one of my own based around MySQL and Qt right now -- don't know
>if it will be GPL'ed or not yet -- we'll probably just use it in house since
>it is designed around our system)...

That's what I set out to find, but didn't find anything on the web site.
I'm looking for something that will do the following:

Single point of entry for users on a secure system:
	Creates account on user (public) systems
		update /etc/passwd/master.passwd file
		update radius database (if necessary)
	Set up up disk quotas (although I hacked adduser to do this)
	Option for adding user to a mailing list(s)
	Export of new user info to customizable report (for automated entry
into
		accounting software, etc...)

Automated billing:
	Export credit card info for batch processing and have hooks built
		in for other forms of electronic processing.
	Batch-Payment (apply payments from formatted text file).
	Customizable reports for manual entry/importing into Accounting
software
	Email or laser print invoices
	Sanity checks credit card numbers before processing (code available)

Simple method for disabling an account.
	Arbitrary Expiration Dates (on a given day, in x days)
	Remove from radius.
	Changing password to '*'
	Virtual customers disabling dns, http server, log processing, etc..

Billing for different account types:
	Dialup monthly flat rate. Prorates for partial months.
	Dialup monthly flat rate for x hours + hourly usage.
	Dialup email only
	Email only accounts
	Virtual Web accounts - w/multiple mailboxes
	Leased line accounts
	Disk space used over quota.
	Tech support minimum + hourly charges
	Other for misc stuff (modem, RAM, etc...)

Per user definable RADIUS attributes (ties in with above)
	Fixed IP
	Simultaneous Use
	IP filters (for dialup email only)

Keep logs of modem usage generated daily from radius accounting logs stored
on multiple radius servers.

Keep logs of disk usage generated from quota.

Method of adding virtual domains to your system:
	Automatically grabs an IP address from a preassigned pool.
	Creates a domain.com database file from database fields
	Updates /etc/named.conf or /etc/named.boot and reloads named.
	Add's virtual.com to /etc/sendmail.cw or qmail control files.
	Edits your web servers httpd.conf file and restarts http server.
	An optional section for adding vif's can be added if the users OS
		supports adding them on the fly. Otherwise it's up to the end
		user. Make a hook that can run a custom script that the user
		tweaks for his system.
	Update or create the config file your web stats analyzer needs. I've
		done this for analog (free) and http-analyze. Probably
		should only officially support analog and let users hack
		it to their hearts desire.
I've already written scripts that do most of the virtual web stuff on my
system...in bash. Shouldn't be hard for a perlmeister to convert. In fact,
as long as all the info was stored in the database (username, domain name,
and ip pool) this could easily just be run as an external script that the
user tweaks to match his system.

We use a great accounting software (M.Y.O.B) that does all the AP, AR,
Payroll, Tax stuff, and most everything else we could need. It's already
set up for the type of checks we have, etc, etc... I just need something to
do the billing part. I can import/export sales and payments directly once
the billing part is done. You can't write accounting software as good as
M.Y.O.B. for $120.




-- 
Ivan Kohler <ivan at sisd.com> - finger for PGP key - <moc.dsis at navi> Relhok Navi
Open-source billing and administration for ISPs - http://www.sisd.com/freeside
20 4,16 * * * saytime # please don't be surprised if you find me dreaming too




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