Re: [gentoo-portage-dev] webapp-config and webapps

[Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org>]

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On Friday 29 October 2004 01:31, Stuart Herbert wrote:

> It's not possible to support non-privileged users running webapp-config
> with the default Apache 2 MPM, as these users can't perform the chown
> operations that the tool needs to do.  We could provide a setuid-safe
> script to do this, but that's not top of my todo list.

Let's say how I would do this if I were an administrator for such a server. 
Well I'd take the easy road of doing the following:
- Make a webpage that users/customers can select the desired webapps for their
  virtual host, including the version. With a big-fat warning that
  autoupdating by the app itself doesn't work.
- Have that webpage append to a pending-transformation list.
- Have a root cronjob that parses (strictly) the pending-transformation list
  and runs webapp-config for eacht of those transformations. Then the pending
  list is flushed.

As the administrator I now only need to select the offered apps, the rest is 
left to the users.

> The problem with each web-based package providing its own package
> management is that you're left with widely varying quality.  You also have
> the problem that it's harder to lock down a site and prevent unauthorised
> change.  And these tools don't work too well on secured and/or disconnected
> intranets (and these are surprising common in the public sector at least). 
> Tools that extend Portage - tools that allow for disconnected upgrades -
> still have their advantages :)

I still consider it bad design. Even though I understand the reasons.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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