#42 Provide more Fedora RPM configuration options

[Ankur Sinha]

Hi,

Is it possible to please provide a few more configuration options? I'm trying to package wikindx for Fedora (which is an rpm based linux distribution). As an rpm available in the Fedora repositories, all Fedora users will be able to easily install wikindx on their systems.

In order to make wikindx available in Fedora, it needs to follow our packaging guidelines[1] that enable smooth upgrades between versions etc. (For example, when a package is updated, we will not replace the configuration file and break the users settings.) We also adhere strictly to the file system hierarchy standards[2].

In short, we do not place any files in /var/www/html. Instead, we provide all static files in /usr/share/wikindx and provide a wikindx.conf in /etc/httpd/conf.d that points to /usr/share/wikindx. All modifiable files will be placed in /var, so the attachment dir, for example, becomes /var/lib/wikindx/attachments, and the files dir becomes /var/lib/wikindx/files. Since there are configuration variables available for these, it's fairly easy to set up wikindx to use the new directories in /var. However, in 4.1.9, I see that other directories, such as templates/compiled_templates must also be writeable by the server, httpd, and should therefore be placed in /var also. There doesn't seem to be any configuration option to make wikindx point elsewhere, and it will require heavy patching on my side to make this happen.

The config.php file will go into the /etc/ directory, which is reserved for configuration files.

Similarly, all static files for plugins will go into /usr/share/plugin-name, while their writeable files will again go into /var/lib/wikindx/plugin-name and configuration files to /etc/.

I was wondering if it's possible to add some configuration options to the config.php file that will make it easier to change the locations of all these directories, (the writeable ones at least), so I can place them in their correct locations as per the file system hierarchy standard?

I'm using wikindx already, and it's a great tool, specially for researchers. It would be great if I could provide it to fedora users.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any doubts about what is required.

Thanks,
Warm regards,
Ankur,
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Web_Applications
[2] http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html

[Mark Grimshaw]

Hi Ankur,

First, I'm very flattered that Fedora wishes to package wikindx in its distribution. But I haven't used Fedora for some years now (before that RedHat) so I'm not at all familiar with it (I now use mainly OSX for work purposes). In short, I don't have a Fedora machine to test things out on.

I'd rather have someone familiar with Fedora (especially the packaging of 3rd party applications) do this. If I gave you access to the developer SVN for wikindx, would this be something you'd be able to configure?

Regards,

Mark

[Ankur Sinha]

Hi Mark,

I've built a working rpm of wikindx and updated the review ticket. We have quite a few selinux errors so one must disable selinux to be able to use wikindx at the moment. Once the package is approved, I'll file requests with the selinux maintainers to add policies for wikindx.

Please find the rpms here:
http://ankursinha.fedorapeople.org/wikindx/

Review ticket is here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882765

Thanks,
Warm regards,
Ankur

[Mark Grimshaw]

Great work Ankur,

I'll add a link on the wikindx homepage.

Mark

[Stéphane Aulery]

This demand will not be addressed as is but idea have been taken for a future version taht a better separation of each type of file is needed.