Forum OpenACS Q&A: New OpenACS RPM's (testing needed..)

Currently, the SDM only allows for one file to be released, so I
suppose we could start with one zip file of all the RPMs, until we
add the ability to have multiple files per package. How does that
sound?

Of course, I wouldn't recommend that anyone who plans to an ultra high-volume site use Apache/mod_aolserver over AOLserver, if given a choice. However, this is a very small subset of potential OpenACS users.

Providing alternatives to AOLserver that promote adoption is, IMO, useful.

(BTW -- apache 2.0 looks like it's going to be a solid performer.. when the major bugs are worked out.)

I'm all in favor of providing the Apache/mod_aolserver RPMs, and am
pleased that aD has done this and is proposing to provide the human
resources to make sure they stay up to date.  I do believe it will
help promote OpenACS and PG.

But it would be sweet to have AOLserver-based RPMs, too, along with
some documentation on the pro/con of going using one webserver
environment over the other.  Might aD already have available, or will
be write and make available soon, such documentation you're still
supporting AOLserver as well as Apache/mod_aolserver for the Oracle
versions?

I'll join Don's plea: it would be great if AOLserver rpms were provided as well.

Of course, they will be hosted at openacs.org.

It might even be a good learning experience if Alen, Lamar, and all other RPM-savvy people can step us through the process of building these things.

There should be instructions, though, for doing a source RPM install,
edit, and recompile.

One reason I don't attach high priority to this is that PG 7.1, which
will be the choice to take in about three months, doesn't restrict row
length to blocksize.  "text" (and other) columns can be of any length.
Poof! the blocksize problem goes away.  (it works in a way very
similar to my "large object hack" in the AOLserver PG driver, but
invisibly to queries, very cool).

So any annoyances caused by installing a default PG with an 8KB
blocksize is short-termed.  I'd rather see us concentrate on the RPM
infrastructure and provide a little documenation rather than seek a
solution that will be obsolete due to PG improvements in about three
months.

Adam - thanks for informing us of this development.  Lamar's
registered here, maybe you should e-mail him directly to see if he has
time to pitch in?  At one point he was enthusiastic about building
AOLserver/ACS/PG RPMs.  He lurks here but not on a daily basis...

2.  Not all of us use Linux, though - I use OpenBSD where
possible.

I would like to see perhaps a little more documentation on
building the thing from source. I have managed to get it
compiled, but am not sure where things go wrong after I add the
LoadModule directive and do "apachectl restart".

IMHO having some documentation on building would then help it
become a "port" package for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and probably
NetBSD too.

[Sun Dec 10 00:15:19 2000] [notice] [client 63.109.219.36] [uri: /]
sql(localhost:5432:ars):
select group_type, pretty_name as group_type_pretty_name, pretty_plural as group_type_pretty_plural,
group_type_public_directory, group_type_admin_directory, group_public_directory, group_admin_directory
from user_group_types
where has_virtual_directory_p='t'
and group_type='/'
[Sun Dec 10 00:15:19 2000] [error] [client 63.109.219.36] [uri: /]
/tcl/user-group-defs.tcl: function ug_serve_group_pages: first element in url_list is not [ad_parameter GroupsDirectory ug]

As to providing help, I can and will answer any questions about the RPM packaging itself -- it _is_ an arcane art.

I have been very busy working on cross-distribution PostgreSQL RPM's lately, along with my full-time day job as a broadcast engineer, so I have not had the time to look at the OpenACS RPM situation much at all.  In fact, I haven't had time to look at OpenACS at all in three or four months.  January should be a little better.

And, of course, PostgreSQL 7.1 is in the beta cycle right now, which adds a little more load to my plate.... 😊  Not that I'm complaining, by any means -- I just don't want to bite off more than I can chew by overextending my time.

But I'll answer any questions I can, as well as helping work on  the cross-distribution aspects of this -- there are substantial things that have to be done to make an RPM with any complexity work on more than one distribution (or even more than one version of a distribution -- such as RedHat 6.2 versus RedHat 7.0).  Oh, and I'm not even talking about the _binary_ packages -- I'm talking about the source packages, although a certain amount of binary compatibility can be found, as the typical RedHat installation includes backwards compatible libraries.

In particular, SuSE and RedHat have very different ideas of where startup scripts are to live.

So, off I go to work on PG 7.1 RPMs....

There were no disruptions to the web site (which was up and serving pages during the installation), and Apache configuration files were maintained (for example: if you type http://www.t2mn.com/foo/bar it still redirects you to http://www.t2mn.com/services and the other domains are still there).

I'm still trying to figure out where everything is and how to administer it (http://www.t2mn.com/admin does not work yet).

In the meantime, are there any security holes or issues I should take care of or be aware of?

1) Is there any option to install openacs for another distro ? Suse 7.0 for example.
2) If there is no option 1:
Is there any option to install only openacs to any linux distro with already compiled psql, apache + mod_aolserver module. With the consideration related to: user doesn't know how to configure nsd.ini, ad.ini, ad.tcl, modified httpd.conf, etc. and another activity, like patching, load tables, load datamodel, etc.

Thank You.