[Mageia-dev] Proofreading web applications policy

Tue Jan 18 19:48:04 CET 2011

Op dinsdag 18 januari 2011 19:07:00 schreef Remy CLOUARD:
+> Hello there,
+> 
+> I started to have a look at the webapps policy.
+> 
+> There’s something that has been bugging me for a while, that’s the
+> apache-centric way of thinking of this policy.
+> 
+> To me, there are valuable alternatives to apache that deserve to be
+> treated equally.
+> Here are the packages that provides webserver
+> 
+> apache-ssl|apache-mpm-event|apache-mpm-peruser|nginx|lighttpd|
+> cherokee|apache-mpm-itk|apache-mpm-worker|thttpd|apache-mpm-rsbac|
+> apache-mpm-prefork|boa
+> 
+> “These are the files that are susceptible to change during the
+> application's lifetime. They go in /var/lib/foo. If they are supposed to
+> be editable by the application directly from the web interface, they
+> should be owned by apache user and apache group.”
+> 
+> Could we create a generic group (webserver for instance) to allow
+> webapps to play nice with these webserver ?
+
+i think we could call it www-data so we can play nice in multidistro 
+environment with idmapping (or possibly even no idmapping).
+
+> Same goes for logfiles and config files containing sensitive
+> informations.
+> 
+> I would also be in favor of creating subpackages for webapps that
+> provides better integration with apache such as files in
+> /etc/httpd/conf/webapps.d/.
+
+i'm in favor of webapps that are webserver independant.
+
+> That way, webapps should have a Requires on webserver, and the
+> subpackage should have one on apache.
+> 
+> Another issue is the owner of /var/www. This directory is owned by
+> apache-conf. Could we instead make a generic package called
+> webserver-data for instance that would provide it ? This way each
+> package providing webserver would have to require webserver-data.
+
+www-data ? again?
+
+> Finally, that may be a little cosmetic detail, but I would prefer
+> template files for apache to be in a separate file in SOURCES/ that’s
+> included instead of creating it in the spec like:
+> cat > %{buildroot}%{_webappconfdir}/%{name}.conf <<EOF
+
+agreed
+
+
+One more thing, for apache specific: apache has multiple layouts, and the 
+current redhat-like one (or even mandriva-one) is not really that easy to 
+configure. the debian-style layout with vhosting on by default is much easier 
+imho. (perhaps vhosting by default could be something that all webservers are 
+set up on.)
+
+However, this is all great, but we agreed to have mandriva-2010.2 upgrade 
+paths. so don't forget about that.
+