Multi-user gnucash

[ghaverla@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 ghaverla@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Rich Shepard wrote:

> >   No, I think the problem's with gnucash. For some reason, when access is
> > from another networked host it just doesn't treat the data files the same
> > way. If gnucash has aspirations of becoming a business bookkeeping system,
> > it has to not leave lock and link files in the data directory when users
> > access the main data file.

Thinking about this a little more, I think all you need is the
shell (actually more like perl or C) wrapper.  You will need a
parent directory for your project, which has read/write/execute
permissions for the GROUP of people working on the project.
You probably need SGID set on that directory as well, something
like 2770 for permissions on that parent directory.

Your wrapper needs to set the home directory, umask and anything
else Gnome/GnuCash needs in the environment.  The wrapper should
be in the same group as the group which works on the file, and
is either SGID or changes its effective group ID when it
executes.  The wrapper probably needs permissions of 2750.
The wrapper is what executes GnuCash.

All of this assumes you have a consistent set of UID and GID
across the network of machines that are using this data.

I haven't tried this with GnuCash, and I might have missed
something.  But I think this is one way which can be
forced to work.

Gord

Matter Realisations     http://www.materialisations.com/
Gordon Haverland, B.Sc. M.Eng. President
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