Re: [DRE-maint] Some comments on the redmine package
On Aug 30, 2008, at 5:11 AM| Aug 30, 2008, Jean-Philippe Garcia Ballester wrote: However, since this is the first rails app that will be package in Debian, I think that others will take it as an example, and I fear that if the package has a few things to fix, these few things will have to be fixed in more that one package. AFAIK redmine won't be in lenny, so I'd rather see the first rails package to be as good as possible. Agreed! Anyway, here is what I've seen so far: * Use debconf in your postinst, to ask the user if * he wants to configure the database.yml file * he wants to create the db * he wants to load default data * he wants to configure a webserver (apache2 fcgid / apache2 mod_rails / …) I'm not sure I want to use debconf, at least at first. I've never played with it and have no idea where to start. If someone had some input or wanted to take this on I would be grateful. Otherwise I think it will have to wait until the package gets a bit more time under its belt. * The sample apache configuration you provide has AFAIK the following problems: * It will not work out of the box. If you do not wish to use debconf to ask the user which way he wants, you should add in the apache2.conf a working configuration (e.g. with mod_fcgid), and in comments other working configurations (e.g. with mod_rails). This apache.conf does work out of the box on my test system. I'm not sure what else to put in here. Are you saying that the comments should be a little more verbose and explain how to set up mod_fcgid? * Why put a VirtualHost with a DocumentRoot? This is confusing, the Alias alone would work better IHMO. I think the upstream has it like this; I didn't even notice the problem. However, the DocuemntRoot is required unless you have a valid one somewhere else. If I remove it Apache complains about not being able to find /htdocs, which is a default value. Also, I couldn't get the alias to work without reworking the routes so I am going to remove it completely. Is there a standard way to set up Apache? Should each app use its own VirtualHost or should it use Alias? Did I hear that the .htaccess file is a bad thing and will be going away in the future? If so, should I move all that stuff to the Directory section? * The commented VirtualHost DocumentRoot lacks “/public” at the end. Fixed. * The README.Debian files contains requirements for running redmine. They are IMHO useless, because it is the job of the package to ensure the requirements are fullfilled (except for optionnal stuff like db and webserver configuration). Thus, I think removing the first two lines and modifying debian/control to add dependency on ruby1.8 and rails (= 2.1), rails (= 2.2) is better. Agreed corrected. * The debian/redmine.lintian-overrides overrides things that should not be overriden, and hides bugs. * The “script-not-executable” warnings: having a shebang and not being executable is contradictory. Either the script can be used as a binary, and should be executable, or it is not and then the shebang useless. The feedback I got from upstream was that these scripts were optional that are copied to other locations when setting up Apache controlled subversion access. Upstream decided that they should not be executable by default. I can patch them if its something that needs to be done. I agree with you but being as this is my first package I have no background on which to base my decision on. Anyone else have any comments? * The ”package-contains-empty-directory”: your comment says “These directories hold temporary data”. However, /usr/share is meant to be read-only, and shipping empty directories there is a bug. Either the program write something in the directory, and this is a bug, or the program doesn't write anything and the directory is useless. I think maybe my Rails inexperience is showing through. Can anyone shed some light on these directories and where they should be placed? I'm thinking that they are standard Rails procedures but might not be used in Redmine: * .../apps/view/members - I think this is part of scaffolding and can be removed. * .../apps/sweepers - If its empty the app doesn't use it and it can be removed. * .../lib/plugins - Future expansion and can be removed. * .../vendor/plugins/gloc-1.1.0/lang - No idea??? * I think the “public” directory should go in /usr/share, because AFAIK it is not meant to be changed, neither at runtime nor by the user. I have really struggled with what to do with public but looking back on it I can see that you are probably correct. Based on this feedback I have moved .../public back to /usr/share. Does this work for everyone? The only weird thing is the .../public/plugin_assets directory. According to the README in that directory, assets are copied from
[DRE-maint] Some comments on the redmine package
Hi, Here are some comments and thoughts about the Richard Hurt's redmine package Richard Hurt. My mail server is broken and I am unable to answer to one of his mail, please excuse me for the disturbance. First, I have to say that I'm very glad and grateful to see that rails apps are being packaged in Debian. It seems Passenger will also be packaged in Debian soon, and it will make deployments and maintenance of rails app really easy. However, since this is the first rails app that will be package in Debian, I think that others will take it as an example, and I fear that if the package has a few things to fix, these few things will have to be fixed in more that one package. AFAIK redmine won't be in lenny, so I'd rather see the first rails package to be as good as possible. Anyway, here is what I've seen so far: * Use debconf in your postinst, to ask the user if * he wants to configure the database.yml file * he wants to create the db * he wants to load default data * he wants to configure a webserver (apache2 fcgid / apache2 mod_rails / …) * The sample apache configuration you provide has AFAIK the following problems: * It will not work out of the box. If you do not wish to use debconf to ask the user which way he wants, you should add in the apache2.conf a working configuration (e.g. with mod_fcgid), and in comments other working configurations (e.g. with mod_rails). * Why put a VirtualHost with a DocumentRoot? This is confusing, the Alias alone would work better IHMO. * The commented VirtualHost DocumentRoot lacks “/public” at the end. * The README.Debian files contains requirements for running redmine. They are IMHO useless, because it is the job of the package to ensure the requirements are fullfilled (except for optionnal stuff like db and webserver configuration). Thus, I think removing the first two lines and modifying debian/control to add dependency on ruby1.8 and rails (= 2.1), rails (= 2.2) is better. * The debian/redmine.lintian-overrides overrides things that should not be overriden, and hides bugs. * The “script-not-executable” warnings: having a shebang and not being executable is contradictory. Either the script can be used as a binary, and should be executable, or it is not and then the shebang useless. * The ”package-contains-empty-directory”: your comment says “These directories hold temporary data”. However, /usr/share is meant to be read-only, and shipping empty directories there is a bug. Either the program write something in the directory, and this is a bug, or the program doesn't write anything and the directory is useless. * I think the “public” directory should go in /usr/share, because AFAIK it is not meant to be changed, neither at runtime nor by the user. * Plugins should go in separate Debian packages. I am against a package in Debian which ships totally different and independant software. * In the “debian/redmine.logrotate” file, you create the log files in mode 0666. I think it should be 0644, or maybe 0640. Also, according to man page, the create option has no effect when copytruncate is used, so maybe you should just remove the create option. * You are using the svn version of redmine to build the package. I am not sure, but I think the 0.7.4 release will not be a snapshot of the svn, but rather backporting bugfixes without introducing new features. Thus, if you ship the svn now, and then the 0.7.4 when it is released, there might be regression features. It might be better to use 0.7.3 and backport patches for rails 2.1. * In the “debian/copyright” file, remove references to “vendor/rails”, since they are not shipped in the Debian package. * You mix in the debian/patches/dispatch.patch two different things: using /usr/bin/env instead of calling ruby directly, and fixing the path to RAILS_ROOT. I think it should be splitted in two, with a short comment of what the patch does and why. * The patch also contains whitespace changes (adding a newline at the end of files). * I think symlinking directories in /usr/share is not, as a user's point of view, the best thing to do. I prefer to have on my system a clean directory structure, rather that symlinks everywhere to fix software not respecting the FHS. This seems to me more like a workaround instead of a real fix, and I think we should try to see how much work it is to patch things to allow configurating the different paths. Some work would need to be done directly in Rails, but if a clean patch is made and applied upstream, this would fix it for other packages and distributions. I'm willing to help fixing these issues, however, I'm in the middle of fixing my computer for the moment and I
