webapp-config: aye or nay?

[Wilhelm]

Ow and btw if you dont like webapp-config then remove vhosts from your /etc/make.conf

Yes you have a choice with gentoo and no webapp-config isn't forced on you (as far as i know).

[cyberpatrol]

No, with the USE flag vhosts you just tell webapp-config to copy the webapps (I think manually) into the vhost directories or automatically copy them only into one directory (/var/www/localhost) after installing them first into a directory owned by webapp-config, so that you have them installed twice with some more disadvantages (e.g. webapp-config's config file management).

So everyone is forced to use webapp-config. And it's not possible to opt it out. Opting out means that webapp-config would not be used and not be installed. And this is not possible but ought to be possible.

[stuherbert]

... I'm sorry that I didn't know about this thread sooner.

webapp-config was designed and introduced because, before it existed, there were numerous problems with the way that web-based packages were being installed. These problems are discussed both in GLEP #11 and in the webapp.eclass man page which comes with the package. If you've got any questions about any of these problems, post them here and I'll do my best to answer them.

Crimson Rider said that webapp-config messed up his multiple host settings for Apache. webapp-config doesn't edit any of Apache's config files, so I'm not sure what actually went wrong. If you'd like to post more information, that'd be a great help.

hds said that web-based applications don't belong in Portage. There are plenty of other users who do find it useful for Gentoo to supply ebuilds for web-based applications. We'll keep maintaining ebuilds for these applications as long as there are developers who are willing to donate the effort to work on them.

hds also complained that webapp-config wastes disk space. If you take a closer look at the files that are stored under /var/www, you'll see that webapp-config uses hard links wherever possible. If /usr/share/webapps and /var/www are on separate filesystems, it does make a copy of all files; hard links don't work across filesystems. Otherwise, the only files it makes copies of are config files and any files that the web server needs to be able to write to. If you have two or more vhosts setup on a box, and you use webapp-config to install our packages, you save disk space.

cyberpatrol asked why webapp-config installs two copies of packages on the hard disk. The answer is that it makes vhost support more efficient, because of the hard linking of files that I've listed above. If you need to install the same package into a second vhost, webapp-config just creates another set of hard links. It uses a lot less disk space - leaving more disk space for uploaded files etc.

cyberpatrol asked where he should put his config.inc.php for phpmyadmin. Assuming that webapp-config has installed phpmyadmin into /var/www/localhost/htdocs/phpmyadmin, you'd put your config.inc.php in there. There was a lot of debate about where config files should go, and in the end we decided that they should go in exactly the same place that they'd be if you installed the package by hand.

cyberpatrol asked why packages are installed into different slots when he upgrades. The answer is that it's the only sensible way for Portage to handle package upgrades. If the packages weren't slotted, when you use 'emerge -u', we'd have to upgrade every copy of the package installed into every vhost. Even if that's how you want it to behave, it's not the right choice as the default. If you don't have the vhost USE flag set, webapp-config will automatically upgrade the copy of the package in /var/www/localhost/htdocs/<package> for you, and hide the SLOTs from you.

cyberpatrol asked how to disable webapp-config. At the moment, you can't. If you don't want to use webapp-config, download and install the packages by hand.

tecknojunky asked what would Portage complain about if he replaced webapp-config with a stub that doesn't actually do anything. Well, do it right and Portage won't notice. However, it's webapp-config (not Portage) which protects config files, which sets the correct ownership on files, and which attempts to auto-configure the package when it's installed. Basically, if you really don't want these features which webapp-config provides, you might as well download and install the package by hand.

My thanks to everyone who's posted here asking questions, and answering them too.

Best regards,
Stu
_________________
--
stuart@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer
Trustee, Gentoo Foundation
http://blog.stuartherbert.com

[cyberpatrol]

[hirnstrudel.de]

[Hagar]

I like the idea but the way it's implemented atm is not very intuitive.
webapp-config just doesn't provide much information about what's going on.

a few examples

[Crimson Rider]