Re: portable.h contents in back-monitor (Was: [Fwd: commit: ldap/servers/slapd/back-monitor...)

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 11:09 AM 1/12/2006, Pierangelo Masarati wrote:
>I suggested to hack OL_DEFINE because ...

The problem is that this will only produce a correct
capabilities list when folks go through configure.
Folks however enable/disable capabilities via other
means. You also have the problem that capabilities can
be added by module.  Nothing ensures that all modules
were built using the same configure output as slapd.

For these reasons, I think we need to be very careful
as to how we manage capabilities.  For instance,
just because slapd was not built with back-ldap,
the installed and running slapd could have a back-ldap
module loaded.  So instead of just having:

#ifdef something
        "Backend LDAP"
#endif

in a common capabilities file, we actually need the
backend to register the capabilities it provides.

Since backends already do so (they register themselves
as backends), we should consider backends themselves
as 'capabilities'.  (Though you might have inter-backend
features.)

And as we move other 'capabilities' (SLAPI, ACIs, etc.)
to overlays/modules, it seems we should advertise their
presence through overlay/module mechanisms.

So, it seems, we're down to frontend capabilities (SASL,
TLS, etc.) and possibly a way for modules (overlays,
backends, etc.) to register what they provide.

Kurt