AcksessManager

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Project: AcksessManager
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Description System and software to manage Acksess 2.0 door controller
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Purpose

We would like to have a more convenient way to manage the door controller and keep track of who exactly has which badge

Goals

  • Able to securely manage tags from local LAN
  • Menu driven UI (ncurses?)
  • Keeps track of when someone was added and which UID somebody has
  • You must present an admin tag at an Ackess door controller before any changes are applied.
  • Keeps a versioned backup of its CSV database on a network storage location

To be determined if in scope or not

  • Log access times of space. (Do we need this? Do we want this? Privacy vs. access management debate. Would require a modification on Ackess 2.0 as it currently does not output this information)

Not in scope

  • Manage system remotely from the internet
  • Open door remotely / without presenting a tag

Hardware

I've settled on using a Dell Wyse Cx0 C10LE thin client.

Using a Raspberry Pi was considered, but it is more powerful than required and costs us money, while this donated Wyse device is sitting in storage and could really use a purpose in life. :-)

Specs

  • CPU: Via C7 @ 1GHz
  • RAM: 256MB
  • Storage: 100MB (!)
  • Video: VX855/VX875 Chrome 9 HCM (Max resolution) 1920 x 1200 @ 60Hz Colour:15/16/24/32bpp)
  • Power: 12V 2.5A, Coax 5.5mm/2.1mm
  • Power usage: Off: 1W, Idle: 5W, Running: 7W

Source: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/cx0/ (with a correction)

Operating system

Since we only have 100MB of storage to work with, the choises for an OS are limited. Yes I could have installed on an external USB flash drive, but where's the fun in that? :p

After some research and looking around, I've settled on using SliTaz Linux. An installation without a GUI takes up a footprint of merely 25MB, which accomodates our main hardware bottleneck on the Wyse hardware.

SliTaz homepage: https://www.slitaz.org/en/ SliTaz documentation: https://doc.slitaz.org/en:handbook:start SliTaz community documentation: https://slitaz-wiki.readthedocs.io/start.html

Installation and configuration

Exact steps for installation and configuration of the OS goes here

Software

  • Will be written in plain C. Python was considered but the storage overhead of the Python packages was deemed too great.
  • Database will be a plain CSV file
  • Will have a menu driven UI using ncurses