[Koha] Master-password (katikoan) and Live-DVD

[Lars J. Helbo]

Hi,

I am trying to promote Koha here in Denmark. We have a large number of 
small private schools for whick Koha is just great. However, often they 
do not have a lot of knowhow on Linux terminal (or nothing at all). Here 
the Live-DVD is really great. Starting with that, I try to make 
step-by-step guides (on my site koha.dk) to help people without any 
preconditions to get started.

One of the major remaining obstacles is the need to change the master 
password katikoan. I have made a guide on this and I think most people 
should be able to handle it. However, it made me wonder, if this 
obstacle could be avoided? One possibility would off course be to let 
people enter their own password during the installation from the 
live-DVD, but that would probably complicate the installation proces and 
I like that to be as simple as possible.

Therefore I had another idea, but I dont know, if this is at all 
possible. Could the "scope" of the users be limited? What I would like 
was, if this master-user (with password katikoan) would only work, if 
you sit and log in directly at the server (not across any network). Then 
you would install koha on the server, log in there and create at least 
one admin-user. Then you could use this to log in from somewhere else 
and continue from there. In this case there would be no need to change 
katikoan, because nobody from outside could use it.

Maybe this could be extended. When you create admin-users, you may give 
them different permissions. Maybe these could be dependent on whether 
you log in at the server, from the local network or across the Internet. 
I think this could increase the general security? At least I could 
easily imagine cases, where a user should have admin-rights only, when 
sitting inside the house at the local network.
-- 
Venlig hilsen
Lars J. Helbo
Borgergade 44, Sall
DK-8450 Hammel
tlf+fax: (+45) 8696 9315
lars at helbo.org
www.helbo.org