Re: Fresh install on CentOS+EPEL - manual steps necessary beyond package installation
Hi Stephen, Thanks for the feedback, it's encouraging to see that some of the items could be automated and I appreciate that others will remain manual steps for the reasons you've stated. In the mean time, should we enhance the ReviewBoard documentation so that it lists the steps necessary to go from a fresh OS install up to a working ReviewBoard site? The current page lacks some of the steps I've detailed. https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/2.0/admin/installation/linux/ The current page mixes generic steps with distro specific information, which may confuse new users as they try to figure out which steps to apply and which to skip. Despite the risk of duplicating information, I think it might be clearer and more concise if we had a separate page for RHEL/CentOS/Fedora installation. Similar pages could be constructed for other distros. If this seems reasonable, then how do we go about updating those pages? What format are the pages written in? The longer term aim is that over time as some of the steps get incorporated in the distro packages or within rb-site install, then the manual install steps will shrink. Thanks, Paul On Friday, October 31, 2014 12:44:46 AM UTC, Stephen Gallagher wrote: On Thu, 2014-10-30 at 04:33 -0700, Paul Fee wrote: Hi Stephen et al., I'm trying to get a CentOS7+EPEL install procedure that involves minimal setup. My aim is to get most functionality into the distro packages so that manual steps are reduced. Thanks for the bugs fixes and support so far. Here's a list of the manuals steps still necessary. I'd like feedback if any of these can be automated and incorporated in a package. For those that remain manual steps, should we update the install documentation to make this easier for others? Manual steps following CentOS7 minimal install: 1. Enable EPEL $ sudo yum install epel-release EPEL is not part of the standard installation for a reason; it's community-provided rather than part of the RHEL standard package set. You can discuss with CentOS whether this should be available by default. 2. Install reviewboard, database and memcached $ sudo yum install ReviewBoard mariadb-server memcached 3. Start database server and secure it $ sudo systemctl enable mariadb $ sudo systemctl start mariadb $ sudo mysql_secure_installation These steps we are working on in the Fedora Server product and will hopefully be part of RHEL 8 (or maybe sometime later in the RHEL 7 lifecycle). Although our first target is postgresql, not MariaDB. Short version: we intend to have a one-click mechanism to deploy a new DB via the new rolekit project (Shameless plug: this is my latest effort). 4. Create database for use by reviewboard $ mysql -u root -p create user review_user@localhost identified by 'review_password'; create database reviewboard; GRANT ALL ON reviewboard.* TO review_user; I'll probably try to roll this creation into the rolekit-based deployment as well. 5. Create a reviewboard site $ sudo rb-site install /var/www/reviewboard/ This part is *very* ReviewBoard specific. We can't hard-code a path into the packages and we can't automatically deploy because we don't know the database information without user input (and RPM installs are non-interactive, unlike Debian packages with debconf. That's a whole other topic though). 6. Adjust httpd configuration $ sudo ln -s /var/www/reviewboard.bfs.tsp/conf/apache-wsgi.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d/ This is something we could work into the package; we could potentially carry a distribution-specific patch that automatically creates this symlink during 'rb-site install'. Ideally, I'd like to do this as a build flag upstream, so that other distributions could do so as well, but a first path could be a Fedora/EPEL-specific patch. 7. Start web server $ sudo systemctl enable memcached $ sudo systemctl start memcached $ sudo systemctl enable httpd $ sudo systemctl start httpd Fedora has a strict policy against *automatically* enabling services to start at boot without user intervention. We *could* add a flag for 'rb-site install' that would say start automatically after completion, but not until we've already handled item 6 above. We won't be able to do so for memcached, however. Since it isn't guaranteed to be running on the same system... However this does raise the point that I should probably add memcached to the systemd unit file so that if it IS being run on the same system, it's started in the right order. Though this is a low risk of a race, since memcached isn't accessed by ReviewBoard at start-up time to the best of my knowledge; only on requests. So probably both will be available before clients are allowed to talk to the system. I'll patch that in the package but I'm not going to spin another build just
Re: Fresh install on CentOS+EPEL - manual steps necessary beyond package installation
On Fri, 2014-10-31 at 02:52 -0700, Paul Fee wrote: Hi Stephen, Thanks for the feedback, it's encouraging to see that some of the items could be automated and I appreciate that others will remain manual steps for the reasons you've stated. In the mean time, should we enhance the ReviewBoard documentation so that it lists the steps necessary to go from a fresh OS install up to a working ReviewBoard site? The current page lacks some of the steps I've detailed. https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/2.0/admin/installation/linux/ The current page mixes generic steps with distro specific information, which may confuse new users as they try to figure out which steps to apply and which to skip. Despite the risk of duplicating information, I think it might be clearer and more concise if we had a separate page for RHEL/CentOS/Fedora installation. Similar pages could be constructed for other distros. If this seems reasonable, then how do we go about updating those pages? What format are the pages written in? The documents are formatted with ReStructuredText (RST)[1] and are kept in the git repository with the rest of the code[2]. The longer term aim is that over time as some of the steps get incorporated in the distro packages or within rb-site install, then the manual install steps will shrink. [1] http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html [2] https://github.com/reviewboard/reviewboard/tree/master/docs/manual/admin/installation -- Get the Review Board Power Pack at http://www.reviewboard.org/powerpack/ --- Sign up for Review Board hosting at RBCommons: https://rbcommons.com/ --- Happy user? Let us know at http://www.reviewboard.org/users/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups reviewboard group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to reviewboard+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Fresh install on CentOS+EPEL - manual steps necessary beyond package installation
Hi Stephen et al., I'm trying to get a CentOS7+EPEL install procedure that involves minimal setup. My aim is to get most functionality into the distro packages so that manual steps are reduced. Thanks for the bugs fixes and support so far. Here's a list of the manuals steps still necessary. I'd like feedback if any of these can be automated and incorporated in a package. For those that remain manual steps, should we update the install documentation to make this easier for others? Manual steps following CentOS7 minimal install: 1. Enable EPEL $ sudo yum install epel-release 2. Install reviewboard, database and memcached $ sudo yum install ReviewBoard mariadb-server memcached 3. Start database server and secure it $ sudo systemctl enable mariadb $ sudo systemctl start mariadb $ sudo mysql_secure_installation 4. Create database for use by reviewboard $ mysql -u root -p create user review_user@localhost identified by 'review_password'; create database reviewboard; GRANT ALL ON reviewboard.* TO review_user; 5. Create a reviewboard site $ sudo rb-site install /var/www/reviewboard/ 6. Adjust httpd configuration $ sudo ln -s /var/www/reviewboard.bfs.tsp/conf/apache-wsgi.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d/ 7. Start web server $ sudo systemctl enable memcached $ sudo systemctl start memcached $ sudo systemctl enable httpd $ sudo systemctl start httpd 8. Adjust site file permissions $ sudo chown -R apache /var/www/reviewboard/data /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/ext /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/static/ext /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/uploaded 9. Adjust site SELinux permissions $ sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_memcache 1 $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/data $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/ext $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/static/ext 10. Open port 80 on firewall $ sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=80/tcp $ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=80/tcp My understanding of packaging guidelines is that Fedora/RHEL packages shouldn't start services automatically, so perhaps these steps will always be necessary. Also the site directory does not below to the ReviewBoard package, so only rb-site would be able to fix the permission issues (steps 8 and 9). Have I missed anything in this list? Can any of these steps be incorporated in the ReviewBoard package or within the rb-site command? Perhaps rb-site could include hooks for distros to plug into their own customisations, e.g. SELinux configuration on Fedora/RHEL. Thanks, Paul -- Get the Review Board Power Pack at http://www.reviewboard.org/powerpack/ --- Sign up for Review Board hosting at RBCommons: https://rbcommons.com/ --- Happy user? Let us know at http://www.reviewboard.org/users/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups reviewboard group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to reviewboard+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Fresh install on CentOS+EPEL - manual steps necessary beyond package installation
On Thu, 2014-10-30 at 04:33 -0700, Paul Fee wrote: Hi Stephen et al., I'm trying to get a CentOS7+EPEL install procedure that involves minimal setup. My aim is to get most functionality into the distro packages so that manual steps are reduced. Thanks for the bugs fixes and support so far. Here's a list of the manuals steps still necessary. I'd like feedback if any of these can be automated and incorporated in a package. For those that remain manual steps, should we update the install documentation to make this easier for others? Manual steps following CentOS7 minimal install: 1. Enable EPEL $ sudo yum install epel-release EPEL is not part of the standard installation for a reason; it's community-provided rather than part of the RHEL standard package set. You can discuss with CentOS whether this should be available by default. 2. Install reviewboard, database and memcached $ sudo yum install ReviewBoard mariadb-server memcached 3. Start database server and secure it $ sudo systemctl enable mariadb $ sudo systemctl start mariadb $ sudo mysql_secure_installation These steps we are working on in the Fedora Server product and will hopefully be part of RHEL 8 (or maybe sometime later in the RHEL 7 lifecycle). Although our first target is postgresql, not MariaDB. Short version: we intend to have a one-click mechanism to deploy a new DB via the new rolekit project (Shameless plug: this is my latest effort). 4. Create database for use by reviewboard $ mysql -u root -p create user review_user@localhost identified by 'review_password'; create database reviewboard; GRANT ALL ON reviewboard.* TO review_user; I'll probably try to roll this creation into the rolekit-based deployment as well. 5. Create a reviewboard site $ sudo rb-site install /var/www/reviewboard/ This part is *very* ReviewBoard specific. We can't hard-code a path into the packages and we can't automatically deploy because we don't know the database information without user input (and RPM installs are non-interactive, unlike Debian packages with debconf. That's a whole other topic though). 6. Adjust httpd configuration $ sudo ln -s /var/www/reviewboard.bfs.tsp/conf/apache-wsgi.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d/ This is something we could work into the package; we could potentially carry a distribution-specific patch that automatically creates this symlink during 'rb-site install'. Ideally, I'd like to do this as a build flag upstream, so that other distributions could do so as well, but a first path could be a Fedora/EPEL-specific patch. 7. Start web server $ sudo systemctl enable memcached $ sudo systemctl start memcached $ sudo systemctl enable httpd $ sudo systemctl start httpd Fedora has a strict policy against *automatically* enabling services to start at boot without user intervention. We *could* add a flag for 'rb-site install' that would say start automatically after completion, but not until we've already handled item 6 above. We won't be able to do so for memcached, however. Since it isn't guaranteed to be running on the same system... However this does raise the point that I should probably add memcached to the systemd unit file so that if it IS being run on the same system, it's started in the right order. Though this is a low risk of a race, since memcached isn't accessed by ReviewBoard at start-up time to the best of my knowledge; only on requests. So probably both will be available before clients are allowed to talk to the system. I'll patch that in the package but I'm not going to spin another build just for that, I think. (Sorry for the ramble; thinking as I type). 8. Adjust site file permissions $ sudo chown -R apache /var/www/reviewboard/data /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/ext /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/static/ext /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/uploaded Again, we can probably solve this with a patch that can accept a distribution-specific build-time value. The real issue here is that the user name for the apache server differs between OSes, so we can't just assume it's 'apache' and make the change automatically upstream in the eggs. However, in distribution packaging, this value is guaranteed to be known, so we can add it there. Again, I'd prefer this to be turned into an upstream patch with an optional build-time configuration so that other distributions can benefit. 9. Adjust site SELinux permissions $ sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_memcache 1 $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/data $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/ext $ sudo chcon --type=httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/static/ext This is something I've meant to do in the Fedora packages for a long time. Again, this will require changes in 'rb-site install' because we don't know where the site path will be in advance. Thank you for the specific steps above, by the way. I've been meaning
