BEWARE upgrading Horde System

[Marc G. Fournier]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2006, Thierry Thomas wrote:

> Le Dim  9 avr 06 à 10:03:35 +0200, Marc G. Fournier <scrappy at hub.org>
> écrivait :
>> Actually, I think you've done a fine job ... my *only* beef is arbitrarily
>> moving aside of the config files that I've already configured ... if I
>> download a horde package, and untar that over top of my existing setup, to
>> upgrade, *it* doesn't do it ... and if I use CVS to update from the
>> anoncvs server, it doesn't remove my config files ... the FreeBSD port
>> shouldn't either ...
>
> There are two main possibilities:
>
> 1- the current one: you get an almost running webmail after the initial
> installation; the installed config files are pre-configured with the
> variables set in the ports Makefile and according to the installed
> dependencies. When upgrading, your modified config files are saved, and
> a new config is installed. Then you have to merge your setup within the
> new files (there is no mergemaster: I use gvimdiff, and I'm sure that
> any decent $EDITOR provides such a tool). You have to do that only for
> your modified files (those saved as .previous).
>
> 2- the port does not pre-install config files, but only the .dist files
> as samples. As you write, this is the method provided by the Horde
> project when you install manually directly from the tarball. During the
> initial configuration, the OP must
>
>     cd config/
>     for f in *.dist; do cp $f `basename $f .dist`; done
>
> for each Horde module. Since these files are not installed by the port,
> they are not deinstalled, and they are still ready when you reinstall.
> And your installation may run or not... To be secure, you have to
> compare your configured files with the new .dist files, and merge the
> new options into your files. You have to check all config files, even
> the ones that you kept unmodified.
>
> I had choosen the first method, because I thought it was easier for the
> OP this way, and I think that a port should do better than a manual
> installation.

You've missed the 3rd, and optimal, option: on initial install, install 
the config files based on the .dist files, but *do not* overwrite an 
existing config file (ie. after an upgrade) ...

The problem is that in your option 1 above, on an existing system, you go 
from a "fully running system", and bring someone back to just an "almost 
running webmail", and, in fact, it isn't even *almost* running, since now 
there is no more connections to the IMAP server, since you've totally 
unconfigured that, you taken away all of my existing database 
configurations, etc ...

Please note that right now, if I upgrade based on the ports, the system 
does not work ... a proper upgrade should involve installing all of the 
new files, and then the admin logging in and going to Horde's Admin -> 
Setup section, and properly going through each module ... the problem with 
your current install, none of the default values are right, there is no 
database connection information, etc ... once I put back in my config 
files from backup, I went to the Setup, it loaded what I had before as 
defaults, and when I saved the config file, any new (or obsolete) 
variables were then added/removed ... with your current config choices, 
I'd have to go through page after page of options, same as i went through 
the very first time, and hope that I get all my settings right, and didn't 
miss something important ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy at hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664