[Mageia-dev] Proofreading web applications policy

Wed Jan 19 00:38:57 CET 2011

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 07:07:00PM +0100, Remy CLOUARD wrote:
+> 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 ?
+
+Wouldn't it be a security problem to have different
+daemon sharing the same uid ?
+
+> 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/.
+
+That would make life difficult for user, as they would have to answer questions
+about things that the package manager would have to figure by 
+itself.
+
+( like deduce what configuration file would be used based on system information )
+
+I think we should aim to reduce questions rather to ask more.
+ 
+> 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.
+
+Put it in filesystem rpm then. And technically, shouldn't
+we follow lsb and use /srv ? 
+
+> 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
+
+Well, why ?
+Inline  configfile can use macros, that's usually a way to be sure
+that /var/ww/%{name} is properly set 
+-- 
+Michaeli Scherer
+