3.8 Developer information

The Programming API for Shisa is described below (see Kerberos Database Functions); this section is about extending Shisa, and consequently Shishi, to use your own user database system. You may want to store your Kerberos user information on an LDAP database server, for example.

Adding a new backend is straight forward. You need to implement the backend API function set, add the list of API functions to db/db.c and possibly also add any library dependencies to the Makefile.

The simplest way to write a new backend is to start from the existing ‘file’ based database, in db/file.c, and modify the entry points as needed.

Note that the current backend API will likely change before it is frozen. We may describe it in detail here when it has matured. However, currently it is similar to the external Shisa API (see Kerberos Database Functions).

There should be no need to modify anything else in the Shisa library, and certainly not in the Shishi library or the shishid server.

Naturally, we would appreciate if you would send us your new backend, if you believe it is generally useful (see Bug Reports).