[DRE-maint] Bug#852187: diaspora: current installation report

[Pirate Praveen]

On Sun, 22 Jan 2017 11:41:13 +0000 Julian Gilbey <jdg at debian.org> wrote:
> Here's a report on issues I've found trying to install the current
> (0.6.0.0+debian-8) version of diaspora.

Thanks for testing. I have uploaded a new version with fixes.

> (1) The diaspora preinst reads on line 15:
> 
>     if su diaspora -s /bin/sh -c "psql  diaspora_production -c ''"
> 
>     Unfortunately, this may fail as the diaspora user is not created
>     until the diaspora-common *postinst*, and the diaspora preinst may
>     be run before this.  Instead, you probably want to change the user
>     to be "su postgres" as the postgres user (if it exists at this
>     point) will certainly be able to run this command.  (If postgres
>     has not been installed, then dbexist will remain undefined.)
> 
>     I'd also add a "-" to the su command, and lose the output:
>     
>     su - postgres -c "psql diaspora_production -c ''" >&/dev/null
> 
>     Actually, if the diaspora package assumes that the backing
>     database will be postgresql, (which may or may not be the case -
>     I'm not sure), then it needs to Depends or Pre-Depends on an
>     appropriate postgresql package - diaspora-common only depends on a
>     choice of mysql or postgres.  And the diaspora-common package
>     gives the option of psql or mysql, so this could be a problem.

This check is now removed. It was there from early days when we only
supported postgres. Also we just skip db initialization if a database
already exist.

> (2) This is a serious bug, and renders diaspora not fit for testing;
>     I'm not setting the severity right now to give the current
>     unstable version a chance to enter testing, as the bug in the
>     current testing version is even worse.

thanks :)

>     The diaspora process writes to /usr, which is expressly forbidden
>     by policy: /usr might be on a read-only filesystem.  See the FHS,
>     very beginning of chapter 4:
> 
>         Chapter 4. The /usr Hierarchy
> 
>         Purpose
> 
>         /usr is the second major section of the filesystem. /usr is
>         shareable, read-only data. That means that /usr should be
>         shareable between various FHS-compliant hosts and must not be
>         written to. Any information that is host-specific or varies
>         with time is stored elsewhere.
> 
>     To be more precise, it stores temporary information in
>     /usr/share/diaspora/tmp, rather than /var/run/diaspora.
>     I *think* this can be solved by putting in a symlink
>     /usr/share/diaspora/tmp -> /var/run/diaspora, but
>     /var/run/diaspora would have to be created and owned by
>     diaspora:nogroup before starting diaspora.  I haven't determined
>     when this directory is and is not used, though - there's something
>     weird going on on my machine regarding this, and I'm not convinced
>     that this solution works.
> 

I have added symlinks for all directories and files for which diaspora
needs write access.

Same for 3.

For 4 and 5. We use environment variables in /etc/diaspora.conf.


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 862 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-ruby-extras-maintainers/attachments/20170126/24459abe/attachment.sig>