Lighthttpd - best way to update system network config file from web application

Question

Hi All,

I have a Gumstix (runs linux) that im using for a project and would like to be able to configure the ethernet / wifi configuration through a web page running on the built in web server.

Think of how routers and the such work - you can log into a default web address and configure everything from there - thats what I want to be able to do.

Does anybody know of a good way to do this? Is it a matter of having a templated configuration file somewhere, then i just override the existing network config file with the templated one (using provided user information, e.g. wifi key etc). This doest seem like the cleanest / most correct way of doing things...or is there some libraries etc that I can use to achieve this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want to do the heavy lifting yourself, you're on the right path. For a targetted, simple interface it might be the way to go. You can use .htaccess to require a username and password to keep it reasonably secure. Also don't forget to restart whatever services are configured so that they pick up the new config.

Or for a prebuilt solution, there's a number of options out there, you might be able to tune webmin down to something reasonable.