Very Computer

I'm looking for suggestions for the best way to do this.  Right now I'm
maintaining an applix spreadsheet containing a list of static ip's (our
regular customers are dhcp assigned, but some businesses and such need
statics).  Anyway, it kinda sux the way I'm doing it now.  I keep a printed
list of all the static ip's and which ones are available on each subnet (more
than 32 subnets) and the 4 other guys here will hand write on it and once in a
while I make changes to it and reprint it and throw the old one away.  This
method really blows, obviously.  

What I was thinking is that it would be great to have some sort of web based
database where all the guys could just look up an IP's "record" and make
changes to it and look at which ones were available and who was using which,
etc, etc...

As usual, budget is low.  And I don't know squat about SQL.  Is there
anything out there that can fit the bill?

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Quote:>What I was thinking is that it would be great to have some sort of web based
>database where all the guys could just look up an IP's "record" and make
>changes to it and look at which ones were available and who was using which,
>etc, etc...

Dave Cook

Ben

: >What I was thinking is that it would be great to have some sort of web based
: >database where all the guys could just look up an IP's "record" and make
: >changes to it and look at which ones were available and who was using which,
: >etc, etc...

: Take a look at PHP (www.php.net).  It has support for dbm key/value type
: databases, which is probably all you need.  

: Dave Cook
--
**************************************************************************
The Center for Civic Networking             PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President &                  Newtonville, MA 02460
Director of Civic Networking Systems        617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946

Someone suggested php, so I'm going to check that out.  I remember seeing
it on freshmeat (of course... :))

I took a peek and it looks like I'd have to learn to program.  Any suggestions
for non-programmers?

: I took a peek and it looks like I'd have to learn to program.  Any suggestions
: for non-programmers?

learn to program or hire a programmer

seriously - if you're going to be integrating databases with web sites,
somebody has to do some rudimentary progrmming
--
**************************************************************************
The Center for Civic Networking             PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President &                  Newtonville, MA 02460
Director of Civic Networking Systems        617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946

Here are my little additions to this thread:

mod_dtcl, which I wrote, is available as a Debian package from the
'unstable' directory.  It allows you to use Tcl very much like you
would use PHP.  I think Tcl has the advantage of having many books
available, and newsgroups, mailing lists, etc...

As a database: postgresql.  It's free, so there are no legal
complications with selling it.  It's also got a lot of functionality.

Ciao,
--
David Welton                         http://www.efn.org/~davidw

                 --Debian GNU/Linux--

Quote:>I took a peek and it looks like I'd have to learn to program.  Any suggestions
>for non-programmers?

At present, most Linux database software assumes at least some knowledge of
SQL, HTML and basic (no, not BASIC!) programming in something like C, Perl,
or (my favorite) Python.

Other possibilities besides PHP are www-sql, Python/HTMLgen
(www.python.org), and various Perl tools (I'm not familiar with Perl stuff;
see www.perl.org.)

www-sql is at http://www.daa.com.au/~james/www-sql/

I suggest learning at least some HTML and SQL as these are very useful even
for non-programmers.

Dave Cook

I ended up printing off a good portion of the php3 manual.  I noticed the
RH5.1 distro comes with php2, but it doesn't appear to have the same dbm
database capabilities as 3.  My programming experience ended back in my dos
days a long time ago with a bunch of BASIC and a good amount of turbo pascal.
HTML, well, i'm obviously no einstein, but gimme a little credit.  :)
I also have some database experience, but not a boatload.  To be honest, I
don't know what the "key/value" concept is.  But, it doesn't look like it'll
be too tough to figure out the basic stuff that I need for php.  I just need
to be able to display all the records in the database sorted, and allow
changes to the records in the database.

Got some reading ahead of me though.

Thanks
-Curt
--

Curt Moore
Clemson University Facilities Information Systems
Certified Novell Administrator

ODBC is an API, not a client server protocol. It does not define
any method for accessing data over a network, though many ODBC
drivers provide this functionality if such functionality is
available from the database server. MS Access is not a database
server. It is a database file format and a database engine. The
engine only runs on Windows platforms, and the file format has
not been publicly spec'd by MS.

Your only choice, if you are intent on using MS Access, is to buy
middleware. Several companies provide middleware bridges to ODBC
for JDBC (Java), so you could use MS Access, ODBC, the Middleware
product of your choice, JDBC, Java Servlets, the Apache Jserv
module, and Apache.

There is a company that sells "ODBC for Linux." What they are, in
fact, selling is a Linux client (which matches the ODBC API) to
their middleware product. It is, I guess, ODBC, but you will need
the middleware to access any database. They probably offer
ODBC-ODBC middleware gateway services, so you could conceivably
get things to work that way too. (Sorry, the name of the company
slips my mind at this point, but I am not a big fan of most
middle-tier data service applications ... I haven't found one
that doesn't decrease performance, flexibility, and capablity
between the server and the client.)

Personally, I have found MS Access unsuitable for all but the
most primitive of multi-user projects. I find MS Access useful,
but only as a report engine, query prototype builder, and as a
front end to a real database server.

A better solution is to find a database server that runs on
Linux, and then use an ODBC client driver with MS Access for a
front end. You will get better performance, stability, and data
integrity. There are open source databases that might fit the
bill, including PostgreSQL and mySQL.

thornton Prime

Do yourself a favor and hire somebody who has programmed database applications.
Many a small business person has ended up paying me to FIX the messes they create.
Because they tried to save a penny by doing themselves, they ended up paying dollars
to me (the old saying: save a penny; lose a pound).  Would you perform minor surgery
on your child, so you wouldn't have to pay a qualified doctor?  Would you rewire
your house so you wouldn't have to pay an electrician (maybe I would, but that's
different cuz I have done minor electrical work before)?  Why would you try to save
a buck and put your desired project in jeopardy of failure?  Hire a programmer - I
work for $50/hr plus expenses - but that is only cuz I would do it on the side of my
fulltime job.

Good luck,
Darren

Quote:> You could try out ApplixWare for $99.95 from RedHat - the box says
> that it include Data Access - If it works anything like MS-Access,
> you will still need to learn about databases.

Quote:>  Do yourself a favor and hire somebody who has programmed database
> applications.  Many a small business person has ended up paying me
> to FIX the messes they create.

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