admin-toolkit #

A Windows-only terminal tool for staging hostname, password, and domain changes.

Why #

At the time of building this program, I worked as an intern at the Itu City Hall (Prefeitura da Estância Turística de Itu). I had to perform system administration tasks — changing hostnames, resetting passwords, joining machines to the domain — all manually through different Windows interfaces. Each task required navigating separate settings dialogs, clicking through multiple screens, and repeating the same steps dozens of times a day.

This tool centralizes those repetitive operations into a single, keyboard-driven terminal interface. It was built for my own workflow, but it reflects a real need: the average municipal office still runs on aging hardware, and anything that reduces clicks and context-switching makes the daily grind a little more bearable.

Why Rust #

I chose Rust for three reasons that mattered in that environment:

Performance. The machines at City Hall weren't new. Some were pushing ten years of continuous operation. Rust's zero-cost abstractions and small runtime footprint meant the tool would launch instantly and stay responsive even under constraints that would choke a heavier runtime.

High-level ergonomics with low-level control. Rust gives you the expressiveness of a high-level language — pattern matching, iterators, Result handling — while still letting you tap into Windows APIs directly. I could call netdom.exe, manipulate the Windows registry, and work with the Win32 API without writing a single line of C or C++.

Mature TUI ecosystem. At the time I started, ratatui (formerly tui-rs) was already a robust, well-maintained library for building terminal user interfaces in Rust. It gave me keyboard handling, layout primitives, and styling without the overhead of a GUI framework — exactly what I needed for a tool that lives in the console.

What it does #

• Shows current hostname and domain.
• Lets you stage three independent actions:
  • change hostname
  • change password for Prefeitura
  • change domain to itu.local
• Requires elevation.
• Applies changes only after a confirm screen.

Controls #

• ↑ / ↓ move between actions
• Space toggle selected action
• e edit hostname or password target
• Enter confirm or apply
• Esc go back
• q quit

Build and test #

cargo build

cargo build --release

cargo test

Release #

Tagged releases use the GitHub Actions workflow in .github/workflows/release.yml.

• Tag format: v*
• Builds Windows binaries for:
  • i686-pc-windows-msvc
  • x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
  • aarch64-pc-windows-msvc
• Publishes the binaries to the GitHub Release page for that tag.

CI #

GitHub Actions test workflow: .github/workflows/test.yml