First I have no problem with providing a number of installation methods, and some people may prefer a less secure set-up. I would prefer not to get to the point where we are openly advocating writing config files from the web server though, but having it as an option would be a good thing, especially if we can say "there's the simple way to install and the secure way to install."
So with that in mind, here's my thinking:
1) we'd probably want any configuration writing classes to be broken off into modules distinct from any interface. With our current config handling for 1.4, this is a lot easier (the CPAN modules we use in 1.4 for reading the config support both reading and writing configuration information). So we already kind of have that, so the question then becomes just how we wrap this in the application.
2) If we have the mechanism down, then it becomes possible to write various tools to create or manipulate the the ledgersmb.conf. There could be an interactive command line tool, for example (Havard has suggested something like this in the past). If folks want a web-based tool, this could then be done. A command-line interactive script could be done. There are lots of options available at that point.
Hope this helps,
Chris Travers