[Pkg-rrfw-general] Apache-related package configuration questions

[Jurij Smakov]

Hello,

I am the coordinator of the packaging effort for RRFW, a Round Robin
Database Framework, which is a collection of Perl scripts for data
acquisition and monitoring (ITP #186828). It uses apache for displaying
the collected data. It utilizes mod_perl, so in the postinst script I have
to modify the apache configuration (by placing the RRFW configuration
snippet into /etc/$apachedir/conf.d, if I understand it correctly). Here
are the problems I run into:

* RRFW is going to support both apache1 and apache2. apache1 support may
  be implemented already now. apache2 support is pending, since the Perl
  module Apache::ParseFormData, used by the RRFW's apache2 handler, is
  not packaged yet. I have filed an RFP for it (bug #256103) and would
  really like to hear from someone, who might be interested in packaging
  it.

* RRFW requires mod_perl for its operation. So, the required dependency
  on apache may be satisfied by EITHER of the following combinations:

  - apache + libapache-mod-perl
  - apache-ssl + libapache-mod-perl
  - apache-perl
  - whatever Provides apache2 + libapache2-mod-perl2

  I wonder, if there is a sane way to incorporate this information into
  the Depends field, so that only necessary components are installed? I
  could not come up with a nice way to do it, so your input would be
  really appreciated.

* If the previous problem is somehow handled, then there is still an issue
  of determining, which version/flavour of apache is actually configured
  and/or running, since this determines, where the configuration files
  are to be placed (/etc/apache/conf.d or /etc/apache-perl/conf.d, for
  example?). Matter is further complicated by the fact, that situations in
  which there are two (or more) instances of apache installed
  simultaneously (it seems somewhat unlikely, but apache and apache-ssl
  will coexist happily on a single machine). When such a thing happens, I
  guess a proper way would be to prompt the user, for which instances the
  RRFW should be enabled. However for that I need at least to somehow
  determine, which apache installations are the active ones (simply
  checking for directories in /etc will probably not do the trick, since
  the configuration directory /etc/$apachedir may be just a leftover from
  some previous installation, and corresponding process is not actually
  running, or even not installed). In summary, the question is: is there
  a valid way to check for all possible instances of apache which are
  properly configured on the system from postinst? Using dpkg-query to
  query the status does not seem very reliable, since it is not known,
  how this information is updated during the installation.

Thanks in advance for all your input,

Jurij Smakov                                        jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/                   KeyID: C99E03CC