Re: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP] Web Application Installation

[Max Kalika <max@gentoo.org>]

Howdy Stuart!

Quoting Stuart Herbert <stuart@gentoo.org>:

>> You want to mix the apache config block with other configuration files
>> that come with the application?  
> 
> /etc/webapps/<application>/ is the directory for the *application's*
> config  files.  Nothing to do with Apache per se.

Correct.  I also create an apache config block as

  /etc/webapps/<application>.conf

This is what gets included into the apache config if a user activates the
specific application.  For example, the horde config block looks like this:

max@ike webapps $ cat horde-apache.conf 
Alias /horde /usr/share/webapps/horde/
<Directory /usr/share/webapps/horde>
  Allow from all
  AllowOverride Limit
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks 
  php_flag safe_mode off
  php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off
  php_flag magic_quotes_runtime off
  php_flag register_globals off
  php_flag file_uploads on
  php_value upload_max_filesize 50M
  php_value include_path /usr/lib/horde-pear
</Directory>

> There is an alternative that should be considered.  Maybe there shouldn't
> be  an /etc/webapps directory at all, and the config files should live
> under the  Document Root.  Yes, this might be better.  How would you
> support multiple  installations of phpMyAdmin using a /etc/webapps/
> scheme?

The whole reason for keeping config files under /etc is for CONFIG_PROTECT.
Multiple versions of any app would be handled the same way as all other
packages on Gentoo -- core files get overwritten in an upgrade and the
config files are updated through dispatch-conf/etc-update/manually.

>> Yes!  Which is why a patch is probably not always appropriate -- sed is
>> more resilient to pieces of configuration moving around upstream.
> 
> Not sure I understand you here.  A patch is applied against a known set
> of  files.  Portage only installs known sets of files.  So a patch is no
> less  appropriate than sed.

Right, but if the file itself gets rearranged constantly (as some apps do),
it may be difficult to maintain the patch.  But again, this all depends on
the package at hand -- as stands right now everywhere else in gentoo, lets
do what is easier/more maintainable.

> Last night, I thought I was sure.  Unfortunately, waking up today I've 
> forgotten ;-)  I'll go back and re-read the thread.

Don't you just hate when that happens :-)

> We're going to use the one eclass for CGIs, mod_perl-dependent, 
> mod_python-dependent, and so on?  Mmmm.  That way lies pain and misery me 
> thinks.

Currently there's nothing in the eclass that is language specific other
than that check_php function (which, as I said before, I'd like to find a
replacement for).

> I think we'll need a webapps-base eclass, and then a webapps-<language>
> set of  eclasses.  All the language-neutral stuff goes in the base, and
> everything  else goes into each specific language eclass.

Certainly.  Perhaps if we don't find anything that is language specific
(which I have yet to see), we can take a different approach and do
webapp-<webservertype>

> Just what webserver-specific configuration do these apps need?  I'd hope
> that,  for the vast majority of apps, it's little to none.

See above.

> It can't be that difficult - it's only  a web server.

Isn't that on the list of "Famous Last Words" ? :-)

--mk

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list