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File: [LON-CAPA] / doc / build / Attic / understanding_files.html
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Sat May 19 14:44:23 2001 UTC (23 years ago) by harris41
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CVS tags: stable_2002_spring, stable_2001_fall, HEAD

description of how files and software packages are handled for the
LON-CAPA system

1: <html> 2: <head> 3: <title>Understanding the Files</title> 4: </head> 5: <body> 6: <h1>Understanding the Files</h1> 7: <p> 8: Scott Harrison, last updated 05/19/2001 9: </p> 10: <h3>Source repository summary</h3> 11: <p> 12: Within our source repository, there are 420 files which 13: are mapped into 39 different system directories. 14: </p> 15: <h3>The "one file" information strategy</h3> 16: <p> 17: We manage all the installation file details of LON-CAPA 18: within one file. This file 19: keeps track of the associated 20: file ownerships and permissions as well as directory ownerships 21: and permissions. We also allow for different sets of 22: file/directory ownerships and permissions to be applied 23: (a development set, and a run-time "secure" set). 24: </p> 25: <p> 26: This "one file" also encodes the invocation of "build" 27: commands whenever compiled binaries need to be 28: regenerated due to changing source code. 29: </p> 30: <h3>Categorizing the files</h3> 31: <p> 32: To most efficiently manage details associated with 33: groups of files, we categorize them as shown in 34: the table below. 35: <TABLE BORDER=1 CELLPADDING=5 WIDTH=60%> 36: <TR> 37: <TH ALIGN=LEFT BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>Type</TH> 38: <TH ALIGN=LEFT BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>Permissions</TH> 39: <TH ALIGN=LEFT BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>Development Permissions</TH> 40: </TR> 41: <TR> 42: <TD>symbolic link</TD> 43: <TD><TT> root:root</TT></TD> 44: <TD><TT> root:root</TT></TD> 45: </TR> 46: <TR> 47: <TD>interface file</TD> 48: <TD><TT>0444 root:root</TT></TD> 49: <TD><TT>0644 www:users</TT></TD> 50: </TR> 51: <TR> 52: <TD>setuid script</TD> 53: <TD><TT>6755 root:root</TT></TD> 54: <TD><TT>6755 root:root</TT></TD> 55: </TR> 56: <TR> 57: <TD>system file</TD> 58: <TD><TT>0644 root:root</TT></TD> 59: <TD><TT>0644 root:root</TT></TD> 60: </TR> 61: <TR> 62: <TD>script</TD> 63: <TD><TT>0700 www:users</TT></TD> 64: <TD><TT>0500 www:users</TT></TD> 65: </TR> 66: <TR> 67: <TD>conf</TD> 68: <TD><TT>0644 root:root</TT></TD> 69: <TD><TT>0644 root:root</TT></TD> 70: </TR> 71: <TR> 72: <TD>root script</TD> 73: <TD><TT>0700 root:root</TT></TD> 74: <TD><TT>0700 root:root</TT></TD> 75: </TR> 76: <TR> 77: <TD>handler</TD> 78: <TD><TT>0444 root:root</TT></TD> 79: <TD><TT>0600 www:users</TT></TD> 80: </TR> 81: <TR> 82: <TD>static conf</TD> 83: <TD><TT>0444 root:root</TT></TD> 84: <TD><TT>0444 root:root</TT></TD> 85: </TR> 86: <TR> 87: <TD>graphic file</TD> 88: <TD><TT>0444 root:root</TT></TD> 89: <TD><TT>0400 www:users</TT></TD> 90: </TR> 91: </table> 92: </p> 93: <h3>Special treatment of the "conf" category</h3> 94: <p> 95: During both installation and upgrades, our procedures 96: safeguard the contents of your machine's configuration. 97: During a CVS upgrade, when you type: "make install", 98: NONE of your "conf" files are overwritten. These include: 99: </p> 100: <ul> 101: <li>"/etc/httpd/conf/access.conf"</li> 102: <li>"/etc/smb.conf"</li> 103: <li>"/home/httpd/lonTabs/hosts.tab"</li> 104: <li>"/home/httpd/lonTabs/spare.tab"</li> 105: <li>"/etc/krb.conf"</li> 106: <li>"/etc/ntp.conf"</li> 107: </ul> 108: <p> 109: The command "make configinstall" will correctly 110: upgrade these files and intelligently conserve 111: configuration information present within them. 112: </p> 113: <h3>The entire file space</h3> 114: <p> 115: A standard LON-CAPA development system has a total 116: of 47464 files belonging to a total of 416 different 117: software packages. 118: </p> 119: <p> 120: 409 of these packages come from ftp.redhat.com. 121: The other 7 of these packages represent "custom-built 122: subsystems" needed to implement LON-CAPA on a machine. 123: </p> 124: <table border=1> 125: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-setup-3.1-1</td> 126: <td>Used only during a fresh installation, this RPM overwrites 127: the /etc/passwd, /etc/group, /etc/hosts.deny, /etc/pam.d/login, 128: and /etc/pam.d/passwd files of the standard RedHat setup-*.rpm. 129: This RPM is installed automatically by the LON-CAPA installation 130: CD. (You should never install this manually since you will lose 131: ability to log into your computer). This RPM also sets up 132: a /home/www directory during the installation.</td></tr> 133: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-base-3.1-1</td> 134: <td>This RPM can be built from CVS by the RPM target in 135: CVS:loncom/build/Makefile. This RPM handles the installation 136: of all 420 CVS source files. We recommend that you do NOT upgrade 137: this RPM on a running LON-CAPA system since you may lose your 138: machine's configuration. All "conf" files are saved with .rpmsave 139: extensions during an RPM upgrade. However, if you upgrade 140: twice, you will wind up with useless .rpmsave backup files.</td></tr> 141: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-krb4-3.1-1</td> 142: <td>This RPM encodes 222 files needed to support Athena-Kerberos version 143: 4 authentication.</td></tr> 144: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-loncapaconfig-3.1-1</td> 145: <td>This RPM encodes a python-Tk GUI for configuring variables 146: on your LON-CAPA machine. There are 569 files in this RPM. 147: /usr/sbin/loncapaconfig launches the GUI. The GUI works well, 148: but is not yet recommended for standard use. 149: </td></tr> 150: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-mysql-3.1-1</td> 151: <td>This encodes MySQL version 3.23.33. This is the backend 'engine' 152: for handling libraries of metadata. The usage of MySQL and LON-CAPA 153: is described in greater detail at 154: http://install.lon-capa.org/docs/loncapasqldatabase.html. 155: This RPM contains 1066 files.</td></tr> 156: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-systemperl-3.1-1</td> 157: <td>This RPM contains 445 files which encode for various builds 158: of perl modules taken from www.cpan.org. These perl modules 159: come from about 16 different CPAN packages: 160: Algorithm::Diff, Authen::Krb4, Crypt::DES, 161: Crypt::IDEA, DBI, 162: Digest::MD5, 163: HTML-Tree, 164: HTML::Parser, 165: HTML::Tagset, 166: MIME-tools, 167: MIME::Base64, 168: Msql-Mysql-modules, 169: Net, 170: Safe::Hole, 171: URI, 172: and libwww-perl. 173: </td></tr> 174: <tr><td>LON-CAPA-barcode-3.1-1</td> 175: <td>This RPM contains 73 files which encode for the GD graphics library 176: and a perl module GD::Barcode which manipulates the graphics library 177: to produce a wide range of barcode formats. This RPM is described 178: better at CVS:doc/build/barcode.html</td></tr> 179: </table> 180: </p> 181: <h3>A note on dependencies</h3> 182: <p> 183: In an ideal world, we could understand how to install anything 184: and how every piece of software relied on every other piece 185: of software. This would make compiling installations and upgrading 186: computers a LOT easier. 187: </p> 188: <p> 189: Ideally, we would have used pre-existing RPMs for MySQL and some of 190: the perl modules. The current, pre-existing RPMs for these components 191: are found within ftp "contrib" repositories. 192: </p> 193: <p> 194: Unfortunately, these "contrib" RPMs make false assumptions about 195: the standard directory setup of a RedHat 6.2 system as well as 196: the existing shared object libraries. The solution was to "roll 197: our own" RPMs based on compilations directly from source. 198: </p> 199: <h3>A note on the installation CD</h3> 200: <p> 201: We make every effort to include up-to-date RPMs on our installation 202: CDs. This helps reduce the number of errors and increase security 203: on LON-CAPA systems. 204: </p> 205: <p> 206: Unfortunately, it is not straightforward to have up-to-date 207: kernels installed on machines. This is because the installation 208: code (mostly written by RedHat) only supports one kernel 209: version. After installation, you will need to upgrade your 210: kernel by following instructions at 211: http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/howto/kernel-upgrade/kernel-upgrade.html. 212: I recommend that you do this soon after installation. 213: In case something goes wrong, you can always start again. 214: </p> 215: <p> 216: The only other minor note is that the RedHat 6.2 upgrade RPM xntp3-5.93-15 217: was not installing correctly from the installation CD due to a 218: dependency on a high version of rpmlib not present in the 219: installation CD binaries. This was fixed by rebuilding the 220: xntp3-5.93-15 RPM from a .src.rpm (source rpm) on a RedHat system 221: with old versions of the rpm-* RPMs. 222: </p> 223: </body> 224: </html> 225: