Re: [webmin-devel] packaged vs local modules

[Jaldhar H. V. <ja...@de...>]

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004, Jamie Cameron wrote:

> I think the best solution here is for the Debian package of Webmin to
> always ensure that packages from apt are used when installing core
> modules, rather than normal .wbm files. This would mean modifying the
> CGIs that handle module and theme installation, to detect if the Debian
> package is in use and to refuse to install a module if an apt package
> for it exists.
>
> The code for installing a standard module and updating modules could
> also be modified to install with apt-get, or perhaps removed altogether.
> What do you think?
>

Yes that is possible.  But Martin explained why simply disabling the
ability to install is not something users would like.

Debian policy declares /usr/local to be off-limits to .deb packages.  This
is why I suggested two module roots.   If packaged modules installed
into /usr/share webmin (which I handle now in my packages) while locally
installed modules installed into /usr/local/share/webmin, We could
guarantee that neither would stomp over the other.  And the configuration
which currently goes into /etc/webmin could go into /usr/local/etc/webmin
Of course all four places would be configurable variables so a user of
the tarball could arrange them anyway he wanted.


> This could perhaps be done under miniserv, but it would break the
> support for running Webmin under Apache.

Apache users could probably use mod_rewrite to make both module roots look
like one.  As it is they have to do some tweaking to get webmin working
under Apache so it shouldn't be too burdensome.

> So I think a better solution is
> to divide modules into two groups - 'core' and 'third-party', and ensure
> that only third-party modules are installed from .wbm files.
>

I still think my suggestion would be more flexible.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <ja...@de...>
La Salle Debain - http://www.braincells.com/debian/