Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, David Michael Leo Brown Jr. wrote:
> I know this has been talked about on and off before, but I would like to 
> seriously get this started.
>
> Right now httpd.conf is very large and cluttered also we don't provide 
> choices to add phpmyadmin phppgadmin, and the like, to apache root or not.  
> However I wouldn't like to see more questions being asked of the user.
>
> I propose to change the /etc/httpd directory adding directories 
> modules-available and modules-enabled along with sites-available and 
> sites-enabled, might recognize this from debian.  The spells would add config 
> files to either sites-available or modules-available automatically then it 
> would be up to the user to copy or link the config files to the sites-enabled 
> or modules-enabled directories, the httpd.conf file would also by default 
> source all files in the sites-enabled and modules-enabled directories.
>
> Also I propose the same sort of approach to apache root. Adding a directory 
> /usr/share/apache[2]/httpd.d where all sites would be installed then 
> requiring the user to link from there to where ever they want. (Seth I think 
> you were concerned about this)
>
> Since apache is one of linux's biggest security risks (of the few security 
> risks that there are :) I think this approach would give more power to the 
> user and still provide unattented and safe installs without adding more 
> questions.
>
> Let me know what you think, I'm sure most of you will ;)

I very much dislike the Debian Way for doing apache. ;) What I'd
rather is a layout such as this:
/etc/httpd/
          /<config files for apache>
          /modules/
                  /<spell>/
                  /<spell>/<config files for spell (e.g. php)>

Perhaps remove the /modules/ abstraction to just have
/etc/httpd/<spell>/.

Any package other than httpd that would like to install config files
will install them to /etc/httpd/modules (e.g. subversion, php, etc.)
and the user would have to add the proper "include modules/<conf
file>" to /etc/httpd/httpd.conf, rather than having extra
config_queries that ask the user if they want to enable it and having
symlinks and directories reminiscent of the /etc/rc.d days.

As for the DocumentRoot installation, I like the idea of not having
packages install themselves to Apache's default DocumentRoot
(/usr/share/apache{,2}/htdocs), and thus being accessible before the
admin might have the chance to properly configure and secure it (e.g.
php{my,pg}admin).

-sandalle

--
Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us                  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285  |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/