That "big binary database" to which you referred is called the ODM. It's in/etc/objrepos. You can make modifications to the database using the various ODM commands, such as odmget, odmdelete, and odmadd. There is no reason you could not put these commands into scripts. In fact, many of the AIX system commands do just that. Do not mess with these commands (especially odmdelete and odmadd) unless you know what you're doing.
Our previous network system administrator used to rant about NT and how he was fed up with having to put up with the cumbersome dialog based configuration, when editing simple ascii files with a simple editor would be so much easier.
One of the reasons NT administrators are fed up with cumbersome dialog boxes is that NT's dialog boxes are cumbersome. The Mac has always had the upper hand here, and from what I've seen of Mac OS X (DP 3 and 4), Apple will likely soon extend its lead in this area.
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That "big binary database" to which you referred is called the ODM. It's in /etc/objrepos. You can make modifications to the database using the various ODM commands, such as odmget, odmdelete, and odmadd. There is no reason you could not put these commands into scripts. In fact, many of the AIX system commands do just that. Do not mess with these commands (especially odmdelete and odmadd) unless you know what you're doing.
SMIT (System Management Integration Tool) is the best system adminstration tool of any I've seen, on any OS, UNIX or otherwise.
One of the reasons NT administrators are fed up with cumbersome dialog boxes is that NT's dialog boxes are cumbersome. The Mac has always had the upper hand here, and from what I've seen of Mac OS X (DP 3 and 4), Apple will likely soon extend its lead in this area.