Horde Group Policy Objects

(or perhaps some other name, as Microsoft may have a copyright on that term)

The idea of Horde Group Policy Objects (HGPO) is to implement a replacement for the current prefs system, modeled after how Group Policy Objects work in a Microsoft Active Directory. Including a nice administrative GUI, meaning no more editing prefs.php files, and happier admins :)

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Visualization of a HGPO

+  app

|  + prefgroup

|  |  + pref

|  |  + pref

|  + prefgroup

|     + pref

+  app

  + prefgroup

     + pref

• The list of apps would be pulled from the registry
  • each app would have a prefs.xml file defining what prefs are available.
  • bundle the GPO and specify a target. A target can consist of:
    • entire horde installation
    • horde group
    • individual user
    • guest user
    • OU if using LDAP backend

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What would need to be done

• build a HGPO manager to list, create, edit, delete, etc. HGPO's
  • Store HGPO in DB table(s)
    • horde_gpo table?
    • possible extend the datatree
    • would (Rampage|RDO) apply?

Possible DB schema, extending existing prefs schema:

horde_prefs table: pref_uid, pref_scope, pref_name, pref_value, HGPO

• If pref_uid is set, the pref is a user pref
  • if HGPO is set, it is a HGPO pref
  • what happens if both are set?

horde_gpo table: HGPO_ID, HGPO_name, HGPO_target, HGPO_target_type, HGPO_override_user_settings

• link horde_gpo::HGPO_ID to horde_prefs::HGPO to get a list of prefs belonging to a given HGPO.

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Other Thoughts

• all $pref->getValue() calls could be handled on the backend by a HGPO manager, giving us a drop-in replacement.
  • we'd need a way to clearly define what happens if two HGPO's have overlapping, conflicting settings.

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Links

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msit/security/grppolobjectmgmt.mspx - gives a good overview on how MS GPO's work, and a nice graphic that really helped me visualize the internal workings.