Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On Monday 13 of June 2011 11:35:08 Patrick Lauer wrote: > On 06/13/11 01:44, Maciej Mrozowski wrote: > > On Friday 10 of June 2011 20:08:00 Ciaran McCreesh wrote: > >> On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 16:37:46 -0500 > >> > >> Matthew Summers wrote: > >>> After consultation and discussion at length with several developers, I > >>> am writing to announce the impending revival of the tool known as > >>> app-admin/webapp-config effective immediately. > >> > >> You might want to chuck it out and start from scratch... > >> > >> Much of the difficulty with the original webapp-config was that it was > >> designed to work on Windows. Stuart's plan was to create a distribution > >> and operating system independent way of dealing with web apps, sort of > >> like CPAN; Gentoo was merely the testbed. If your goals don't match > >> that, you're probably better rethinking everything than trying to revive > >> something that was designed for a completely different purpose. > > > > Also, for pure Gentoo needs it may be better to replace webapp-config > > with package manager and eclasses. > > How does that handle multiple installs etc.? Multiple version installs? Package slotting could be utilized. If multiple instances of the same version - of course it doesn't but nothing prevents you (or eclass - pkg_config() phase) from creating apache config for each virtualhost (for instance) you want particular webapp served. It's not like one really needs to bluntly copy webapp code to deploy it multiple times, usually it's sufficient to fiddle with and . Sometimes patches are needed of course. > > So to install web apps to /usr/share or sth and provide apache config > > files to set up those webapps like Debian does for instance > > ZOMG NOES. > That stuff is horrible, it randomly patches the webserver config > wrongly, then restarts the webserver - so installing nagios knocks out > your apache. Which then makes for some funny debugging ... > > Let's aim higher than that, please, I don't want random misbehaviour :) I forgot the word 'Debian' triggers some unhandled exceptions within your processing queue ;) Seriously, Debian-way of handling web apps isn't bad at all from my experience (I'm not sysadmin however, I just happened to maintain a few web/dev servers), certainly better out-of-the-box experience and better organized than what we have IMHO (save webapp-config). As for httpd service auto restarts - I believe that was never suggested for Gentoo anyway, just "a bit Debian-like" apache config layout - bug 296271. > - so dispatch-conf would be > > > utilized for tracking config file modifications and uninstall via unmerge > > > > One major obstacle is that we have quite a number of web servers to > > support if we're to provide out of the box experience for those web > > apps. > > So provide a default config for, say, apache, and then figure out if > that can be transcribed to others easily. Maybe it can be turned into > simple templates to generate all configs from? -- regards MM signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On 06/13/11 01:44, Maciej Mrozowski wrote: > On Friday 10 of June 2011 20:08:00 Ciaran McCreesh wrote: >> On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 16:37:46 -0500 >> >> Matthew Summers wrote: >>> After consultation and discussion at length with several developers, I >>> am writing to announce the impending revival of the tool known as >>> app-admin/webapp-config effective immediately. >> >> You might want to chuck it out and start from scratch... >> >> Much of the difficulty with the original webapp-config was that it was >> designed to work on Windows. Stuart's plan was to create a distribution >> and operating system independent way of dealing with web apps, sort of >> like CPAN; Gentoo was merely the testbed. If your goals don't match >> that, you're probably better rethinking everything than trying to revive >> something that was designed for a completely different purpose. > > Also, for pure Gentoo needs it may be better to replace webapp-config with > package manager and eclasses. How does that handle multiple installs etc.? > So to install web apps to /usr/share or sth and provide apache config files > to > set up those webapps like Debian does for instance ZOMG NOES. That stuff is horrible, it randomly patches the webserver config wrongly, then restarts the webserver - so installing nagios knocks out your apache. Which then makes for some funny debugging ... Let's aim higher than that, please, I don't want random misbehaviour :) - so dispatch-conf would be > utilized for tracking config file modifications and uninstall via unmerge > > One major obstacle is that we have quite a number of web servers to support > if > we're to provide out of the box experience for those web apps. > So provide a default config for, say, apache, and then figure out if that can be transcribed to others easily. Maybe it can be turned into simple templates to generate all configs from? -- Patrick Lauer http://service.gentooexperimental.org Gentoo Council Member and Evangelist Part of Gentoo Benchmarks, Forensics, PostgreSQL, KDE herds
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On Friday 10 of June 2011 20:08:00 Ciaran McCreesh wrote: > On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 16:37:46 -0500 > > Matthew Summers wrote: > > After consultation and discussion at length with several developers, I > > am writing to announce the impending revival of the tool known as > > app-admin/webapp-config effective immediately. > > You might want to chuck it out and start from scratch... > > Much of the difficulty with the original webapp-config was that it was > designed to work on Windows. Stuart's plan was to create a distribution > and operating system independent way of dealing with web apps, sort of > like CPAN; Gentoo was merely the testbed. If your goals don't match > that, you're probably better rethinking everything than trying to revive > something that was designed for a completely different purpose. Also, for pure Gentoo needs it may be better to replace webapp-config with package manager and eclasses. So to install web apps to /usr/share or sth and provide apache config files to set up those webapps like Debian does for instance - so dispatch-conf would be utilized for tracking config file modifications and uninstall via unmerge One major obstacle is that we have quite a number of web servers to support if we're to provide out of the box experience for those web apps. -- regards MM signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 16:37:46 -0500 Matthew Summers wrote: > After consultation and discussion at length with several developers, I > am writing to announce the impending revival of the tool known as > app-admin/webapp-config effective immediately. You might want to chuck it out and start from scratch... Much of the difficulty with the original webapp-config was that it was designed to work on Windows. Stuart's plan was to create a distribution and operating system independent way of dealing with web apps, sort of like CPAN; Gentoo was merely the testbed. If your goals don't match that, you're probably better rethinking everything than trying to revive something that was designed for a completely different purpose. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On 06/10/2011 05:38 PM, Matthew Summers wrote: >> Why did you choose how you did? > > I do not understand this sentence, I intended to write "as you did", sorry. If that's still bad English: I wanted to hear about your rationale, which you have explained by now. Thanks. > [..] this tool has an > important role in Gentoo and therefore needs to be revived. I wished people were thinking like that about genkernel :-) Best, Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 6:49 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote: > Questions: > > - What does reviving mean in detail? > A re-write? A somewhat compatible re-write? I am not necessarily interested in a complete re-write unless its really warranted due to support for new features. First things first, webapp-config needs to have the open bugs addressed and current functionality should be supported. > Getting back to maintaining the current code? There is some good code in there, so I think at minimum some of that will be maintained moving forward. Regardless, the current codebase should be audited, bugs fixed, and a new design spec incorporating the new features desired needs to be written in collaboration with various stake holders. > Why did you choose how you did? I do not understand this sentence, but will try to explain the choices a bit. Having used webapp-config for 7 years or so, I had grown fond of it for managing things like drupal (back in the day) and for handling static media for my company projects. As time progressed, it seemed reasonable to extend the functionality of w-c to do fancier things like change tracking or byte-compiling python modules outside of site-packages for multi-instance and potentially multi-versioned deployments of the various pythonic webapps I manage. It seems reasonable to roll this sort of functionality into the existing tool. I am not intending to make this something specific to python webapps, just to be clear, but include tools to handle webapps written in ruby/rails, perl, etc. Additionally, Gentoo's infra team uses w-c for a few things and its a nice tool that mostly integrates well into cfengine (afaik). Whatever the case with automation, it does make management tasks easier (perhaps IMO). Further, there are substantial applications, like Moodle, that would benefit from a more robust deployment toolkit within Gentoo. So, in general, from both a distribution and a professional perspective its quite clear (at least to me), that this tool has an important role in Gentoo and therefore needs to be revived. > > - Have you spoken to Andreas Nüsslein who worked on a > re-write in context of an earlier GSoC? I have not. I was unaware of this project until it was mentioned in replies to this thread. I have started reading the code. Perhaps there are some elements of Andreas' code we can incorporate into the w-c codebase. I need to dig into the code far more than my cursory glance. > > Best, > > > > > Sebastian > > Good questions Sebastian, thanks. Matthew W. Summers Gentoo Foundation Inc.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 7:49 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote: > Questions: > > - What does reviving mean in detail? > A re-write? A somewhat compatible re-write? > Getting back to maintaining the current code? > Why did you choose how you did? > > - Have you spoken to Andreas Nüsslein who worked on a > re-write in context of an earlier GSoC? > IIRC, last year's GSoC featured a project involving the rewrite of webapp-config. Andreas was the student, but I don't recall right now who the mentor was. Maybe this would be a good start! > Best, > > > > > Sebastian > > Best regards, -- Jesus Rivero (Neurogeek) Gentoo Developer
Re: [gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
Questions: - What does reviving mean in detail? A re-write? A somewhat compatible re-write? Getting back to maintaining the current code? Why did you choose how you did? - Have you spoken to Andreas Nüsslein who worked on a re-write in context of an earlier GSoC? Best, Sebastian
[gentoo-dev] Reviving webapp-config
Ladies and Gentlemen, After consultation and discussion at length with several developers, I am writing to announce the impending revival of the tool known as app-admin/webapp-config effective immediately. If any fellow developers or motivated users from our superb community wish to join in this effort, please don't hesitate to assert your voice in the process by responding to this thread. We are aware of several bugs that need attention and towards their resolution as well as to facilitate a more pleasant development experience we have moved the repository to git.overlays.g.o proj/webapp-config.git which is also easily viewable via the web for those that want to follow along. While I may prefer to paint the bike shed purple and adorn it with Larry's beautiful head, I'm certain others have different ideas. It has under discussion that a fairly substantial refactor and extension in functionality is needed for webapp-config to bring it into the current era of web application frameworks (i.e. django, rails, erlyweb, lift, etc) while also supporting the existing functionality. I hope that this email serves to invite and stimulate conversation towards the revival of an excellent tool for Gentoo. Please let us know your thoughts and interest! Kind Regards, Matthew W. Summers Gentoo Foundation Inc.
