Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tom Feiner]

Hi,

> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Holger Levsen  wrote:
>> Hi Tom,
>>
>> On Montag, 2. November 2009, Tom Feiner wrote:
>>> Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
>>> is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
>>> databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the directory,
>>> it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.
>> It might be bad if the directory is gone and the webserver refuses to start
>> because of a non-existing DocumentRoot...
>>

Well, all we're doing is defining an alias with a DocumentRoot and at
least in apache2, it handles it gracefully, returning a 404 Not Found
'The requested URL /munin/ was not found on this server'. Also, apache
restarts work fine.

We will have to test it with the rest of the major webservers to make
sure they're also ok with this, but I expect it'll work the same.

Tom



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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

On Mittwoch, 4. November 2009, Stephen Gran wrote:
> _contents_ of /var/cache/munin, and I don't recall the FHS saying that
> it expected applications to cope gracefully with the directory structure
> being yanked out from under them by addled admins.

Right. (It only says apps have to cope gracefully with deleted files.)


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, Holger Levsen said:
> Hi Tom,
> 
> On Montag, 2. November 2009, Tom Feiner wrote:
> > Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
> > is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
> > databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the directory,
> > it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.
> 
> It might be bad if the directory is gone and the webserver refuses to start 
> because of a non-existing DocumentRoot... 

Apache will explode if the log directory doesn't exist, but it usually
just returns internal server error if the docroot is missing.  Maybe
some of the other web servers we ship aren't quite as tolerant, but I
have less experience with them.  And frankly, that's a "don't do that,
then" moment, really.  It is perfectly safe (if foolish) to delete the
_contents_ of /var/cache/munin, and I don't recall the FHS saying that
it expected applications to cope gracefully with the directory structure
being yanked out from under them by addled admins.

Cheers,
-- 
 -
|   ,''`.Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :sg...@debian.org |
|  `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer |
|`- http://www.debian.org |
 -


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi Tom,

On Montag, 2. November 2009, Tom Feiner wrote:
> Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
> is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
> databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the directory,
> it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.

It might be bad if the directory is gone and the webserver refuses to start 
because of a non-existing DocumentRoot... 


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, Tom Feiner said:
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen 
> wrote:
> > Tom Feiner  writes:
> >
> >> Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
> >> is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
> >> databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the
> >> directory, it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.
> >
> > Apart from "it feels wrong", no.
> 
> Hm... it does feel a bit wrong, but do we have any other sensible
> choice? Adding /var/lib/munin-www/ is also an option, but it feels just
> as bad as /var/cache :)

/var/lib is much worse than /var/cache for this.  I don't really see an
objection to /var/cache, even aesthetically.  It's not like the admin
can't change it later if they don't like it.

Cheers,
-- 
 -
|   ,''`.Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :sg...@debian.org |
|  `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer |
|`- http://www.debian.org |
 -


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

hi stig,

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 02:48:56PM +0100, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote:
> Tom Feiner  writes:
> 
> > Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
> > is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
> > databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the
> > directory, it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.
> 
> Apart from "it feels wrong", no.

if it can be regenerated, then /var/cache/munin/html is exactly where it
should be.  only if there are actual things that can't be regenerated (i.e.
rrd files with historical data not put elsewhere) should it go under /var/lib.

with regards to the use of the top-level munin directory in /var/lib/munin,
you could fix that with some migration support in maintainer scripts (or just
chose another similarly named subdirectory under /var/lib), but it seems
like it's a non issue if /var/cache is the right place anyway.


mvh,
sean


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Tom Feiner  writes:

> Sorry for the newbie question (I'm not that familiar with debconf).
> Will debconf be able to manage upgrade from current munin version?
> Changing the current 'htmldir /var/www/munin' to the new user
> specified one?

Debconf asks questions and stores them.  However, with the power of sed,
you can do anything. :)

> In phpmyadmin package they raise a debconf question, asking which web
> server the user wants to configure phpmyadmin to run under (and they
> give apache2,lighttpd options), maybe we can do the same in munin?
>
> Can you help me implement this for the munin 1.4~svn release for
> debian experimental?

Yes, I'll start looking at it tomorrow.

-- 
Stig Sandbeck Mathisen


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Neil McGovern  writes:

> Have a read of
> http://webapps-common.alioth.debian.org/draft/html/ch-httpd.html

Useful, thanks. :)

-- 
Stig Sandbeck Mathisen


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tom Feiner]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen 
wrote:
> Tom Feiner  writes:
>
>> Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
>> is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
>> databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the
>> directory, it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.
>
> Apart from "it feels wrong", no.

Hm... it does feel a bit wrong, but do we have any other sensible
choice? Adding /var/lib/munin-www/ is also an option, but it feels just
as bad as /var/cache :)

>
>>> One could ask via debconf, and suggest /var/www/munin as a default,
>>> would that be acceptable?
>>
>> Users might not know a good answer such a question and will probably
>> just stick with the defaults, so suggesting /var/www/munin will just
>> keep the current non FHS complaint status quo.
>
> Ok, debconf question with /var/cache/munin/html as default, then.  The
> admin then have the option to use /srv/foo/whatever or /var/www/munin.
>
> By debconf, we have a path which we'll add to /etc/munin/munin.conf, and
> to the web server configuration snippets.

Sorry for the newbie question (I'm not that familiar with debconf). Will
debconf be able to manage upgrade from current munin version? Changing
the current 'htmldir /var/www/munin' to the new user specified one?

>
> Should the web configuration be enabled by default?  Assume apache2, and
> add configuration to /etc/apache2/conf.d/munin.conf?
>

In phpmyadmin package they raise a debconf question, asking which web
server the user wants to configure phpmyadmin to run under (and they
give apache2,lighttpd options), maybe we can do the same in munin?

Can you help me implement this for the munin 1.4~svn release for debian
experimental?

Thanks,
Tom Feiner



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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Neil McGovern]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 02:48:56PM +0100, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote:
> Should the web configuration be enabled by default?  Assume apache2, and
> add configuration to /etc/apache2/conf.d/munin.conf?
> 

Have a read of
http://webapps-common.alioth.debian.org/draft/html/ch-httpd.html

Neil
-- 
automake: the emo of Debian software. "You just don't understand me."


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Mike Hommey  writes:

> * /usr/share/munin.

Would not work well for variable data, I think.  The graphs and HTML is
updated every 5 minutes.

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Tom Feiner  writes:

> Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
> is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
> databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the
> directory, it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.

Apart from "it feels wrong", no.

>> One could ask via debconf, and suggest /var/www/munin as a default,
>> would that be acceptable?
>
> Users might not know a good answer such a question and will probably
> just stick with the defaults, so suggesting /var/www/munin will just
> keep the current non FHS complaint status quo.

Ok, debconf question with /var/cache/munin/html as default, then.  The
admin then have the option to use /srv/foo/whatever or /var/www/munin.

By debconf, we have a path which we'll add to /etc/munin/munin.conf, and
to the web server configuration snippets.

Should the web configuration be enabled by default?  Assume apache2, and
add configuration to /etc/apache2/conf.d/munin.conf?

-- 
Stig Sandbeck Mathisen


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Mike Hommey]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 02:27:16PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 01:30:37PM +0100, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote:
> > Manoj Srivastava  writes:
> > 
> > > As I mentioned on IRC, look at trac. The trick is put configuration
> > > files in /etc/munin/, and symlink it back into /var/lib/munin if munin
> > > needs that.
> > 
> > All munin needs is a place to write static html and png files.
> > 
> > * /var/lib/munin is already used as top level for munin's data files.
> >   If we add a web root there, it may cause collisions.
> > 
> > * /var/cache may not be the best place, since FHS says that data here
> >   can be deleted with little consequence, and the generated web pages
> >   will be gone until the next time munin-graph and munin-html runs.
> 
> * /usr/share/munin.

Forget it, i though it was for really static data, i.e. within the
package.

Mike


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tom Feiner]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen 
wrote:
> All munin needs is a place to write static html and png files.
>
> * /var/lib/munin is already used as top level for munin's data files.
>  If we add a web root there, it may cause collisions.
>

Right.

> * /var/cache may not be the best place, since FHS says that data here
>  can be deleted with little consequence, and the generated web pages
>  will be gone until the next time munin-graph and munin-html runs.

Is /var/cache really such a bad option? I mean, the entire web content
is re-generated from templates & graphs are re-generated from the rrd
databases every 5 minutes. So even if someone did delete the directory,
it'll just be recreated up to 5 minutes later.

>
> One could ask via debconf, and suggest /var/www/munin as a default,
> would that be acceptable?

Users might not know a good answer such a question and will probably
just stick with the defaults, so suggesting /var/www/munin will just
keep the current non FHS complaint status quo.

Regards,
   Tom Feiner




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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Mike Hommey]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 01:30:37PM +0100, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava  writes:
> 
> > As I mentioned on IRC, look at trac. The trick is put configuration
> > files in /etc/munin/, and symlink it back into /var/lib/munin if munin
> > needs that.
> 
> All munin needs is a place to write static html and png files.
> 
> * /var/lib/munin is already used as top level for munin's data files.
>   If we add a web root there, it may cause collisions.
> 
> * /var/cache may not be the best place, since FHS says that data here
>   can be deleted with little consequence, and the generated web pages
>   will be gone until the next time munin-graph and munin-html runs.

* /usr/share/munin.


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Manoj Srivastava  writes:

> As I mentioned on IRC, look at trac. The trick is put configuration
> files in /etc/munin/, and symlink it back into /var/lib/munin if munin
> needs that.

All munin needs is a place to write static html and png files.

* /var/lib/munin is already used as top level for munin's data files.
  If we add a web root there, it may cause collisions.

* /var/cache may not be the best place, since FHS says that data here
  can be deleted with little consequence, and the generated web pages
  will be gone until the next time munin-graph and munin-html runs.

One could ask via debconf, and suggest /var/www/munin as a default,
would that be acceptable?

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Gabor Gombas]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 05:51:26PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:

> /var/lib/munin/www is wrong (FHS says: "Users must never need to modify files 
> in /var/lib to configure a package's operation." since users might want to 
> modify the css files)

IMHO that's not different from some user wanting to modify the sources
of any random package. If you really think that editing the css file is
an every-day operation, then it should be moved to /etc and marked as a
conffile. Ohterwise, don't bother.

Gabor

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Steve Langasek]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 06:46:42PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:

> On Samstag, 31. Oktober 2009, sean finney wrote:
> > if it's regenerable, then i'd say /var/cache/munin/something is the
> > right place, and if isn't /var/lib/munin/something.  if you seperate
> > the things that the user might want to configure (css, etc), where's
> > the problem[1]?

> that it's butt ugly and work for no gain? plus, seperating is not supported 
> upstream, so it will need patching for no gain...

> i'm absolutly not convinced this is the right solution. 

I think that the right solution is to not have web apps in our archive
unless they can be made to conform with policy's requirements.  If a web app
isn't going to comply with the FHS, that's fine - but that web app doesn't
need to be in the Debian archive.

If you think it's "butt ugly" for your web app package to behave in a manner
consistent with all the other packages in the archive, we clearly have
different views when it comes to aesthetics.

-- 
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Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Sat, Oct 31 2009, Holger Levsen wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mittwoch, 30. September 2009, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>> I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
>> Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
>> installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
>> unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...
>
> +1 from yet. Yet I still don't know how to configure munin, so that it works 
> out of the box (and so that the webpages it generates are served by a 
> webserver) and conforms to FHS like some people read it.
>
> /var/lib/munin/www is wrong (FHS says: "Users must never need to modify files 
> in /var/lib to configure a package's operation." since users might want to 
> modify the css files)

As I mentioned on IRC, look at trac. The trick is put
 configuration files in /etc/munin/, and symlink it back into
 /var/lib/munin if  munin needs that.


> /var/cache/munin/www feels very wrong, but might work, with static
> files like css files coming from /etc/munin/www or such.

Static non configuration files can live in /usr/{share,lib}/munin, 
 and  be also linked into /var/lib/munin.

This is not a new solution, I think trac and mediawiki have
 solved this, I think.

manoj
-- 
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Manoj Srivastava    
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 06:46:42PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Samstag, 31. Oktober 2009, sean finney wrote:
> > if it's regenerable, then i'd say /var/cache/munin/something is the
> > right place, and if isn't /var/lib/munin/something.  if you seperate
> > the things that the user might want to configure (css, etc), where's
> > the problem[1]?
> 
> that it's butt ugly and work for no gain? plus, seperating is not supported 
> upstream, so it will need patching for no gain...

no gain beyond being FHS/policy conformant you mean :)

you might not need to actually patch the upstream code for this, beyond
a few more lines in the apache configuration.. at least from the PoV of
the web browser.  

if there *is* something hardcoded internally (paths to log directories
or cached content that's read internally before being served out), one
workaround to avoid needing to change the source would be to strategically
drop a few symlinks.


sean


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi sean,

On Samstag, 31. Oktober 2009, sean finney wrote:
> if it's regenerable, then i'd say /var/cache/munin/something is the
> right place, and if isn't /var/lib/munin/something.  if you seperate
> the things that the user might want to configure (css, etc), where's
> the problem[1]?

that it's butt ugly and work for no gain? plus, seperating is not supported 
upstream, so it will need patching for no gain...

i'm absolutly not convinced this is the right solution. 


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

hi holger,

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 05:51:26PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> +1 from yet. Yet I still don't know how to configure munin, so that it works 
> out of the box (and so that the webpages it generates are served by a 
> webserver) and conforms to FHS like some people read it.
> 
> /var/lib/munin/www is wrong (FHS says: "Users must never need to modify files 
> in /var/lib to configure a package's operation." since users might want to 
> modify the css files)
> 
> /var/cache/munin/www feels very wrong, but might work, with static files like 
> css files coming from /etc/munin/www or such.

if it's regenerable, then i'd say /var/cache/munin/something is the
right place, and if isn't /var/lib/munin/something.  if you seperate
the things that the user might want to configure (css, etc), where's
the problem[1]?

sean

[1] it's kinda an old thread so i might be forgetting something


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

On Mittwoch, 30. September 2009, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
> Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
> installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
> unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...

+1 from yet. Yet I still don't know how to configure munin, so that it works 
out of the box (and so that the webpages it generates are served by a 
webserver) and conforms to FHS like some people read it.

/var/lib/munin/www is wrong (FHS says: "Users must never need to modify files 
in /var/lib to configure a package's operation." since users might want to 
modify the css files)

/var/cache/munin/www feels very wrong, but might work, with static files like 
css files coming from /etc/munin/www or such.

what other options do you see?

On Montag, 28. September 2009, Gabor Gombas wrote:
> > http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1192 explicitly
> > says: "This is particularly important as these areas will often contain
> > both files initially installed by the distributor, and those added by the
> > administrator." which to me very much sounds like the distributor
> > (=Debian here) can place directories there...
> The problem is that people already put a lot of things under /srv and
> therefore it is really hard to make sure you do not overwrite anything.
> What do you do e.g. if the name of the directory you want to create
> already exists as a file?

Simple: leave it as it is and don't provide a working configuration out of the 
box. I doubt that many people will have /srv/munin and if they have, they can 
very probably configure munin themselves.

On Montag, 28. September 2009, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> | > commenting on /srv in particular:
> | >
> | > As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine.
> |
> | Where do you read this?
> |
> | http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1192
>
> That's a footnote, and in most standards, footnotes are not
> normative.

Hm, point taken, I guess.

So, atm I only see one way out of this: ask other distributions how they 
handle this and (then) talk with the FHS people to clarify usage of /srv and 
what to do with webapps.


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Frans Pop]

sean finney wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 08:14:19AM +, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
>> I believe most (or at least many) of those only support a single web
>> root. If you want to serve munin's static content from /usr/share/munin
>> and foo's static content from /usr/share/foo , you'll probably just
>> symlink both from /var/www and hope that this httpd supports (doesn't
>> explicitly disable) symlinks and doesn't chroot.
> 
> i believe the most webservers worth attention provide some form of
> alias/scriptalias support that would negate the need to put things in
> /var/www in order to get them working out of the box.
> 
> for the rest, with the lack of such ability i think the debian packages
> should err on the side of caution and do nothing, leaving it to the local
> admin to configure the application (whether by dropping in symlinks or
> something else).  packages should not ever ship with stuff in /var/www
> whether they be data or symlinks, for the same reason that they shouldn't
> do so in /srv.

I think that is fine as long as there is clear documentation available on
_how_ to manually configure things so that they can be used from a simple 
single web root.

Possibly this could be a required section in README.Debian for packages 
that provide web services?

I personally like boa on my laptop for things like dwww and info2www.
I also like the fact that they currently do work without any manual 
configuration. The fact that they are installed should IMO be sufficient 
indication that I actually want to use them.

Cheers,
FJP


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

hi,

On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 08:14:19AM +, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> I believe most (or at least many) of those only support a single web
> root. If you want to serve munin's static content from /usr/share/munin
> and foo's static content from /usr/share/foo , you'll probably just
> symlink both from /var/www and hope that this httpd supports (doesn't
> explicitly disable) symlinks and doesn't chroot.

i believe the most webservers worth attention provide some form of
alias/scriptalias support that would negate the need to put things in
/var/www in order to get them working out of the box.

for the rest, with the lack of such ability i think the debian packages
should err on the side of caution and do nothing, leaving it to the local
admin to configure the application (whether by dropping in symlinks or
something else).  packages should not ever ship with stuff in /var/www
whether they be data or symlinks, for the same reason that they shouldn't
do so in /srv.


sean


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 04:15:42PM +0800, Holger Levsen wrote:
> 
> On Sonntag, 27. September 2009, sean finney wrote:

> > > I personally do not believe that serving anything from a package via the
> > > web by default is a good goal.  Certainly for my systems, any system
> > > that's running a web server has a virtual host configuration and anything
> > > that packages try to do to control what my web server serves out is
> > > broken and undesireable.
> > i'd have to disagree there.  i think anything that might serve up content
> > while unconfigured is a horrible idea 
> 
> I think having munin working out-of-the-box is a very neat feature.

One minor point regarding "out of the box":

Currently the package munin Suggests 'httpd'. Not specifically apache.

http://packages.debian.org/sid/munin

now shows:

  httpd
virtual package provided by aolserver4-core-4.5.1,
aolserver4-daemon,apache2-mpm-event, apache2-mpm-itk,
apache2-mpm-prefork, apache2-mpm-worker, boa, bozohttpd, caudium,
cherokee, dhttpd, ebhttpd, fnord, lighttpd, mathopd, micro-httpd,
mini-httpd, monkey, nginx, ocsigen, roxen4, thttpd, tntnet, webfs,
yaws

I believe most (or at least many) of those only support a single web
root. If you want to serve munin's static content from /usr/share/munin
and foo's static content from /usr/share/foo , you'll probably just
symlink both from /var/www and hope that this httpd supports (doesn't
explicitly disable) symlinks and doesn't chroot.

I figure most of us don't really care about support for yet another
httpd that nobody really uses. However, "getting it to work out of the
box" now seems to basically mean "adding apache2 connfiguration snippet
for it". Are other httpds supported?

(And yes, I read the webapps policy draft).

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

hi stig,

(sorry for the late reply)

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 09:23:17AM +0200, Stig Sandbeck Mathisen wrote:
> sean finney  writes:
> 
> > there is, it's called webapps-common[1].  unfortunately what *is*
> > missing is developers with time to put into maintaining it, which is
> > why it has not been uploaded or integrated with support for more httpd
> > services.
> 
> That looks useful.  What can I do to help?

if you (or anyone else) are interested in helping webapps-common, then
my first suggestion is to join up on debian-weba...@lists.debian.org.  
if there's enough interest we can hammer out a roadmap for what needs to
be done to get the package into a release-quality state.


sean


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Frank Lin PIAT]

On Sun, 2009-09-27 at 01:45 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Holger Levsen  writes:
> 
> > I think having munin working out-of-the-box is a very neat feature.
> 
> I think we need better support in the Apache package for adding particular
> aliases and similar URL configuration into the default site, so that those
> who want to do things like this can add the necessary URL mappings to the
> default site and those of us who are doing anything more complex and who
> are therefore disabling the default site anyway don't have random packages
> suddenly taking over portions of our URL space.

The URL namespace isn't "suddenly" taken over:
1. The admin deliberately install the package.
2. The admin choose to use the default settings of the package.
   (editing the conf files is usually trivial)

Personally, on my modest production websites, I always disable the
default website (a2dissite 000-default), then disable the "Include"
lines in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf... So I can cherry pick (Include or
copy) the configuration files snippets in my vhosts.
On some other machines, I am often very happy to just "apt-get install"
and simply _read_ the fine manual.

I would be really annoyed I had to manually configure and enable
ssh-server on every machine (generating the host key, configure sshd,
enabling sshd in /etc/default/ssh, then start the service).
Same applies to most webapps.

Regards


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

sean finney  writes:

> there is, it's called webapps-common[1].  unfortunately what *is*
> missing is developers with time to put into maintaining it, which is
> why it has not been uploaded or integrated with support for more httpd
> services.

That looks useful.  What can I do to help?

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Steve McIntyre 

(Please respect my m-f-t, I read the list. :-)

| I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
| Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
| installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
| unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...

I'm not opposed to making stuff work out of the box, but I think using
/srv as a default location is wrong, since its structure is explicitly
undefined.  I haven't looked at webapps-common, and I also believe this
problem is a bit larger than just webapps, though web applications are
much more common than say, services that lie on top of XMPP.  Hopefully
there are good thoughts there that can be generalised a bit further so
we can have a «app/vhost service» policy.

(I'd be quite happy for us to get rid of ENABLED=[01] in /etc/default/*
for instance.)

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Russ Allbery]

sean finney  writes:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 04:12:58PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> I think the real problem here is that we have some missing integration
>> glue.  A lot of packages want to serve things out via the web by
>> default unless the sysadmin has indicated that they want control over
>> the URL space.  Apache sort of provides a way to do that, but it isn't
>> very good.  Other web servers in Debian so far as I know don't at all.
>> And there isn't a common interface supported by all of them.

> there is, it's called webapps-common[1].  unfortunately what *is* missing
> is developers with time to put into maintaining it, which is why it
> has not been uploaded or integrated with support for more httpd services.

Yeah, that looks like the right direction to go.

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 04:12:58PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> I think the real problem here is that we have some missing integration
> glue.  A lot of packages want to serve things out via the web by default
> unless the sysadmin has indicated that they want control over the URL
> space.  Apache sort of provides a way to do that, but it isn't very good.
> Other web servers in Debian so far as I know don't at all.  And there
> isn't a common interface supported by all of them.

there is, it's called webapps-common[1].  unfortunately what *is* missing
is developers with time to put into maintaining it, which is why it
has not been uploaded or integrated with support for more httpd services.


sean

[1] http://webapps-common.alioth.debian.org/draft-wac/html/
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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Russ Allbery]

"mli...@stacktrace.us"  writes:

> I personally prefer to keep files served by a webserver in /var/www/

Local sysadmins can of course use that path, but Debian packages aren't
allowed to according to the way most of us have read the FHS.

Debian web application packages should really put their static files in
/usr/share/ and their data files in /var/lib/ just like
every other package does, and then use the web configuration to serve out
the correct parts of the file system.  That way there's never any
accidental, unexpected results from dropping files into an area that a
sysadmin may think they can use for some other purpose.

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[mli...@stacktrace.us]

Russ Allbery wrote:

Steve McIntyre  writes:


I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...


I don't think /srv is the answer to any question about "where do Debian
packages put data in their default configuration."  /srv is really
intended to be a place where the local system administrator organizes
their service data, which means we need to let them choose to organize it
however they wish.

I think the real problem here is that we have some missing integration
glue.  A lot of packages want to serve things out via the web by default
unless the sysadmin has indicated that they want control over the URL
space.  Apache sort of provides a way to do that, but it isn't very good.
Other web servers in Debian so far as I know don't at all.  And there
isn't a common interface supported by all of them.

I think we need to put together a standard definition of how a Debian
package can specify "please serve out this data and this CGI script at
these URLs unless the sysadmin has said to leave the web configuration
alone," using a standard API implemented by all web servers in Debian.  I
suspect that will get everyone what they want.



I agree on this one.

I personally prefer to keep files served by a webserver in /var/www/


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Russ Allbery]

Steve McIntyre  writes:

> I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
> Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
> installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
> unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...

I don't think /srv is the answer to any question about "where do Debian
packages put data in their default configuration."  /srv is really
intended to be a place where the local system administrator organizes
their service data, which means we need to let them choose to organize it
however they wish.

I think the real problem here is that we have some missing integration
glue.  A lot of packages want to serve things out via the web by default
unless the sysadmin has indicated that they want control over the URL
space.  Apache sort of provides a way to do that, but it isn't very good.
Other web servers in Debian so far as I know don't at all.  And there
isn't a common interface supported by all of them.

I think we need to put together a standard definition of how a Debian
package can specify "please serve out this data and this CGI script at
these URLs unless the sysadmin has said to leave the web configuration
alone," using a standard API implemented by all web servers in Debian.  I
suspect that will get everyone what they want.

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Steve McIntyre]

Tollef wrote:
>
>I realise you've had good an constructive responses for webapps, so
>commenting on /srv in particular:
>
>As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine.  It's even
>more off-limits than /usr/local (where you can create directories, but
>not remove them).

I'm still unconvinced by /srv personally - we've strived for years in
Debian to make things work as much as possible straight from initial
installation, yet now we're expected to deliberately leave services
unconfigured. I don't think this is progress for most of our users...

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"Since phone messaging became popular, the young generation has lost the
 ability to read or write anything that is longer than one hundred and sixty
 characters."  -- Ignatios Souvatzis


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Holger Levsen 

| Hi,
| 
| On Montag, 28. September 2009, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
| > I realise you've had good an constructive responses for webapps, so
| > commenting on /srv in particular:
| >
| > As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine. 
| 
| Where do you read this? 
| 
| http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1192

That's a footnote, and in most standards, footnotes are not
normative.

If they are, I think we have a few RC bugs to file for stuff living in
/sbin and /usr/sbin which should go in /bin or /usr/bin as appropriate.
(See http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1058).

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Gabor Gombas]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 10:19:22PM +0800, Holger Levsen wrote:

> > As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine. 
> 
> Where do you read this? 
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1192 explicitly 
> says: "This is particularly important as these areas will often contain both 
> files initially installed by the distributor, and those added by the 
> administrator." which to me very much sounds like the distributor (=Debian 
> here) can place directories there...

The problem is that people already put a lot of things under /srv and
therefore it is really hard to make sure you do not overwrite anything.
What do you do e.g. if the name of the directory you want to create
already exists as a file?

IMHO the only safe way to populate /srv is inside the Debian Installer
(and even then there can be issues when the user selects to mount a
pre-existing file system over /srv).

Gabor

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

On Montag, 28. September 2009, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> I realise you've had good an constructive responses for webapps, so
> commenting on /srv in particular:
>
> As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine. 

Where do you read this? 

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1192 explicitly 
says: "This is particularly important as these areas will often contain both 
files initially installed by the distributor, and those added by the 
administrator." which to me very much sounds like the distributor (=Debian 
here) can place directories there...


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Holger Levsen  writes:

> http://lintian.debian.org/tags/dir-or-file-in-var-www.html nor
> debian-policy is helpful to resolve this issue - so I would like to
> discuss this here and come up with a good solution.
>
> Suggestions?

No package may touch /srv, but we could perhahs recommend its usage in
documentation or examples.

The package should generate html and graphs somewhere in /var/lib/munin,
possibly /var/lib/munin/html, and provide configuration examples for the
most common web servers.

A possible conflict:

Munin uses /var/lib/munin as the root of its dbdir, and if someone makes
a "html" domain for web servers, confusion may occur, as that directory
will store both the RRD files for that domain, as well as the generated
HTML.

Moving old data:

There should be no need to move old data.  munin-graph should re-create
missing graphs on the first run.  munin-html updates all web pages every
run.

We'll add a notice to NEWS.Debian:

,[ NEWS.Debian ]
| The munin web root default location has moved from /var/www/munin to
| /var/lib/munin/html.  To do this manually, you can:
| 
| * Update "htmldir" in /etc/munin/munin.conf to point to
|   /var/lib/munin/html.
| 
| * Add configuration to your web server, see fragments in
|   /usr/share/doc/munin/examples for your web server
| 
| * Remove /var/www/munin when convenient.
`

Configuration examples for common web servers:

The following configuration fragments could be placed in
/usr/share/doc/munin/examples/

This is for apache httpd.  Add to /etc/apache2/conf.d/ to cover all
virtual hosts, or include in a virtual host:

,[ /etc/apache2/conf.d/munin.conf ]
| Alias /munin /var/lib/munin/html
| 
| Order allow,deny
| Allow from localhost 127.0.0.0/8 ::1
| Options None
| 
`

For nginx, you will have to add the following to an existing
virtualhost.  

nginx in sid has ipv6 support, and this was enabled in the upload
yesterday, I guess an extra "allow ::1;" (or "allow [::1];") would do
the trick.

,[ /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default ]
| location /munin {
| alias /var/lib/munin/html;
| allow 127.0.0.0/8;
| deny all;
| }
`

For lighttpd, we need something like the following.  Note that this acl
example may not work with IPv6 enabled, since lighttpd does not do
subnet matching on IPv6 (http://redmine.lighttpd.net/issues/385)

,[ /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/munin.conf ]
| alias.url += ( "/munin" => "/var/lib/munin/html" )
| 
| $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/munin" {
|   $HTTP["remoteip"] != "127.0.0.0/8" {
| url.access-deny = ( "" )
|   }
| }
| 
`

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Holger Levsen 

| The way I read 
| 
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#SRVDATAFORSERVICESPROVIDEDBYSYSTEM 
 
| /srv/munin would be the proper location for our purpose, but I know that some 
| people disagree, claiming that /srv is only to be used by the local admins.
| 
| As I read it, no package should remove files there, but placing files there 
| should be fine. What's more important, I don't see which location is better 
| suited.

I realise you've had good an constructive responses for webapps, so
commenting on /srv in particular:

As I read it, putting stuff there is absolutely not fine.  It's even
more off-limits than /usr/local (where you can create directories, but
not remove them).

-- 
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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Russ Allbery]

Holger Levsen  writes:

>> i would recommend similar, but with the modification that you use a
>> dedicated subdirectory (i.e. /usr/share/munin/site), so that you still
>> have /usr/share/munin for other uses as well.

> Thats for read-only data only.

Right, you take the static data shipped with the package and put it there,
and you put the dynamically generated data in /var/lib/munin, following
the FHS.

You don't need to put all the web files in the same place.  There's no
correlation between where files are located on disk and what URLs they're
exposed as.

> I think having munin working out-of-the-box is a very neat feature.

I think we need better support in the Apache package for adding particular
aliases and similar URL configuration into the default site, so that those
who want to do things like this can add the necessary URL mappings to the
default site and those of us who are doing anything more complex and who
are therefore disabling the default site anyway don't have random packages
suddenly taking over portions of our URL space.

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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi Sean,

On Sonntag, 27. September 2009, sean finney wrote:
> > > currently munin ships some file(s) in /var/www/munin/ and also puts its
> > > generated graphs there. This location has been depracted and we, the
> > > munin maintainers, would like to come up with a new location for
> > > squeeze.
> take a look at http://webapps-common.alioth.debian.org/draft/html/ , which
> covers most of the stuff you're asking about.

I've skimmed it and neither 3.1 nor 5.1.1 covers what I'm interested at. Where 
to put static files is easy... but not my main question :)

> i would recommend similar, but with the modification that you use a
> dedicated subdirectory (i.e. /usr/share/munin/site), so that you still
> have /usr/share/munin for other uses as well.

Thats for read-only data only.

> > I personally do not believe that serving anything from a package via the
> > web by default is a good goal.  Certainly for my systems, any system
> > that's running a web server has a virtual host configuration and anything
> > that packages try to do to control what my web server serves out is
> > broken and undesireable.
> i'd have to disagree there.  i think anything that might serve up content
> while unconfigured is a horrible idea 

I think having munin working out-of-the-box is a very neat feature.

> (one more reason to avoid /var/www 
> and /usr/lib/cgi-bin), but if someone installs an application that can
> behave sanely out of the box, i don't see why one shouldn't go out of
> their way to do so.

munin can. I just dont know where to go ;-)


regards,
Holger


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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[sean finney]

hi holger, russ,

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 12:36:43AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Holger Levsen  writes:
> 
> > currently munin ships some file(s) in /var/www/munin/ and also puts its
> > generated graphs there. This location has been depracted and we, the
> > munin maintainers, would like to come up with a new location for
> > squeeze.

take a look at http://webapps-common.alioth.debian.org/draft/html/ , which
covers most of the stuff you're asking about.

> My recommendation would be for it to install its static files in
> /usr/share/munin, put its generated graphs in /var/lib/munin, and provide
> example configuration for common web servers such as Apache that explain
> how to serve out the appropriate files.

i would recommend similar, but with the modification that you use a
dedicated subdirectory (i.e. /usr/share/munin/site), so that you still
have /usr/share/munin for other uses as well.

> I personally do not believe that serving anything from a package via the
> web by default is a good goal.  Certainly for my systems, any system
> that's running a web server has a virtual host configuration and anything
> that packages try to do to control what my web server serves out is broken
> and undesireable.

i'd have to disagree there.  i think anything that might serve up content
while unconfigured is a horrible idea (one more reason to avoid /var/www
and /usr/lib/cgi-bin), but if someone installs an application that can
behave sanely out of the box, i don't see why one shouldn't go out of
their way to do so.


sean
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Re: /var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Russ Allbery]

Holger Levsen  writes:

> currently munin ships some file(s) in /var/www/munin/ and also puts its
> generated graphs there. This location has been depracted and we, the
> munin maintainers, would like to come up with a new location for
> squeeze.

> The way I read 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#SRVDATAFORSERVICESPROVIDEDBYSYSTEM
>   
> /srv/munin would be the proper location for our purpose, but I know that some 
> people disagree, claiming that /srv is only to be used by the local admins.

> As I read it, no package should remove files there, but placing files there 
> should be fine. What's more important, I don't see which location is better 
> suited.

My recommendation would be for it to install its static files in
/usr/share/munin, put its generated graphs in /var/lib/munin, and provide
example configuration for common web servers such as Apache that explain
how to serve out the appropriate files.

I personally do not believe that serving anything from a package via the
web by default is a good goal.  Certainly for my systems, any system
that's running a web server has a virtual host configuration and anything
that packages try to do to control what my web server serves out is broken
and undesireable.

-- 
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/var/www is depracated, which directory to use?

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

currently munin ships some file(s) in /var/www/munin/ and also puts its 
generated graphs there. This location has been depracted and we, the munin 
maintainers, would like to come up with a new location for squeeze.

The way I read 
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#SRVDATAFORSERVICESPROVIDEDBYSYSTEM 
 
/srv/munin would be the proper location for our purpose, but I know that some 
people disagree, claiming that /srv is only to be used by the local admins.

As I read it, no package should remove files there, but placing files there 
should be fine. What's more important, I don't see which location is better 
suited.

http://lintian.debian.org/tags/dir-or-file-in-var-www.html nor debian-policy 
is helpful to resolve this issue - so I would like to discuss this here and 
come up with a good solution.

Suggestions?


regards,
Holger


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