Re: Debian packages and Bruce Hohl Install

[Hugh Esco <..hidden..>]

You may not know whether an mta or the postmaster are running
or otherwise available remotely perhaps, unless you ask the
user doing the install.  You can test for an mta and a local
database engine and prompt to learn whether the administrator
performing the install would rather use a remote db engine,
would prefer to set an existing known password for the purpose,
or might prefer to make note of how to manually run the post
install script after these other matters (configuring the mta,
locking down the postgres engine) are handled.  

sql-ledger has continued to serve people needing a double entry
system other than major manufacturers.  smb-ledger can too.
Small non-profits and home based businesses can use these
tools too.  Those folks don't have IT staffs to work out
these details for them.  

I'd suggest the following as a screen of your user interface
during the post install script.  If the deb package could
prompt first perhaps as follows:

	How would you like to configure smb-ledger?

	* I may or may not be an accountant, but I'm certainly
	now a server administrator, please handle this for me.
	My postgres database is installed on the same machine
	as my webserver and this application.  Please provide
	me default settings to serve my needs.

	* I want to customize my database connection parameters
	(perhaps to provide for a non local connection to
	the database backend, or an unusual port assignment),
	or configure for a remote mail transfer agent, etc.

	* I want to run this post install script manually
	after I have had an opportunity to configure my mail
	transfer agent and secure my database server.

	To run this script manually later, either instead
	of running it now or in order to adjust your base
	configuration of SMB-Ledger, as root, from a prompt,
	invoke:
		/path/to/post-install-script.sh

-- Hugh Esco
CampaignFoundations.com

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:41:37 -0500
From: Seneca Cunningham <..hidden..>
Subject: Re: [Ledger-smb-devel] Debian packages and Bruce Hohl Install
To: ..hidden..

On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 11:15:10AM -0800, Chris Travers wrote:
> in the RPM's the fear is that if these are ever included in a
> repository that might be used during installation, we can;t guarantee
> that PostgreSQL is running at the time of installation.  I suppose
> that we could try to start PostgreSQL if it is not already started,
> but then we get identd issues with most packages, and of course we
> would want to discuss the relevant security issues here first.

Start PostgreSQL?  Who says it's even installed on the same server as
LedgerSMB.

> Secondly, since we can't guarantee that an appropriate MTA is running
> at the time of installation, it would be better to create a file in
> the /root/ directory that would have that information if we find that
> we should go this route.

Many of the more "user-friendly" distros don't have a root password and
users may never visit /root (or even know of its existence), given the 
recent trend towards favouring sudo and frequently inefficient graphical
applications.

-- 
Seneca
..hidden..