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The Doctor's to-do list

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Revision as of 05:29, 5 September 2011 by Drwho (talk | contribs)

Stuff will be stricken out as I finish it. If anyone wants to jump in and help me with this, by all means do so, just put your initials at the end so I know who did what.

In no particular order, this is the stuff I want to accomplish over Labor Day weekend:

  • The build configuration in the .Slackbuild for nginx is already pretty much what we need.
    • I used the following command line to force nginx to use a custom pseudouser and pseudogroup rather than nobody and nobody (respectively): NGINXUSER=nginx NGINXGROUP=nginx ./nginx.SlackBuild
    • A user and group called 'nginx' will have to be created in the OS before this will work. This is to sandbox the daemon more effectively.
    • The /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file will have to be modified. I'll check that into Git as well.
    • Need to create two directories, /etc/nginx/apps (for active web apps) and /etc/nginx/offline_apps (self explanatory) in the .Slackbuild.
    • Need to create /srv/nginx in the .Slackbuild for the web apps to go into.
      • /srv/nginx/root is for the /index.php script
      • /srv/nginx/<app> is for web apps
      • Owned by nginx.nginx, mod 0755.
    • Due to how the tgz-to-xzm conversion process works, doinst.sh is not called, so there are some steps that we have to be done by the .Slackbuild script.
  • Test that particular build of nginx against a couple of PHP apps.
  • Build nginx packages and check them into SVN.
  • Figure out a good PHP build configuration that
    • for optimal FastCGI compatibility, needs to be >= v5.3.3. We've got this covered with the .Slackbuild for Slackware v13.37.
    • runs under FastCGI
    • more FastCGI
    • includes SQLite
    • includes MySQL
  • Test that particular build of PHP against a couple of apps.
  • Write a .Slackbuild script for new version of PHP with the configuration I work out. There's a bug in v5.3.6 in that it won't build without LDAP support.
  • Build PHP packages and check them into SVN.
    • Use the Slackware v.13.37 .Slackbuild script as a base
    • ./configure options I'm using for testing before packaging:
      • --enable-fpm --enable-mbstring --disable-pdo --with-curl --disable-debug --disable-rpath --enable-inline-optimization --with-bz2 --with-zlib --enable-sockets --enable-sysvsem --enable-sysvshm --enable-pcntl --enable-mbregex --enable-zip --with-pcre-regex --with-openssl --with-mysql --with-mysql-sock=/var/run/mysql/mysql.sock --with-mysqli --enable-sqlite-utf8 --prefix=/usr --with-gmp --enable-intl --with-xsl --enable-zip --without-ldap --with-mcrypt
    • Need to rewrite the destination for the module in the .Slackbuild because we're building against nginx and not Apache. The .Slackbuild is going to require serious modifications.
    • Need to configure so that it's
      • optimized for small-ish systems
      • hardened!
  • Set up an account on the Porteus forums and post the link to our SVN repo.
  • Develop a configuration for nginx that
    • is lightweight
    • somewhat optimized
    • modular, so that each app has its own included config file
    • hardened
  • Write a web app for the control panel that
    • Can start and stop nginx on demand
    • store its configuration in a database
    • move sub-config files for nginx that represent PHP apps into and out of the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory
    • force nginx to reload its config files every time an app is (de-)configured
      • /usr/sbin/nginx -s reload
  • Get OpenSSL working in nginx
  • Write an initscript that
    • checks for the presence of a node's SSL cert in /etc/nginx (the default)
    • terminates if one is found
  • Set Porteus up to set its hostname to the IPv6 address of the primary wireless interface of the node.
  • Write a PHP app that
    • displays a "Hello, User!" message
    • displays links to apps hosted on the node which happen to be active
    • removes links to apps hosted on the node that are deactivated
      • I don't know PHP... can we find someone who does?
      • Would have to reference the SQLite database which keeps track of the active and inactive web apps and modifies the output accordingly
    • has to be mobile-friendly
  • Install crypto.cat on my development instance
    • requires PHP
    • will need its UI tweaked to be more mobile-friendly
    • Create a crypto.cat Porteus package and check it into SVN
  • Install etherpad-lite on my development instance
    • requires node.js, for which there exists a Slackpack
      • build a Slackpack of node.js, convert into Porteus package, check everything into SVN
    • write an initscript that can start up crypto.cat when called but not at boot
    • will have to be controlled by the control panel, store its configuration in a database
    • write a sub-config file for nginx that passes through the /pad URL to localhost:9001
    • requires NPM
      • that will need to be packaged and checked in separately, I think.
      • run it in verbose mode to keep an eye on it
      • if it installs more stuff, we should bundle the whole mess into the NPM Porteus package
    • really should run as an unprivileged user
    • really should listen on the loopback interface only
    • pay attention to the reverse-proxy howto for nginx!
    • have to start it by hand a few times to figure out how to automate and package it
  • install status.net on my development instance
    • requires PHP, MySQL
    • nginx must have URL rewriting available
    • PHP must have support for Curl, XMLwriter, MySQL, GD, mbstring, gettext (all required for status.net), SQLite (to read configuration databases)
    • nginx installation instructions!
    • will need to pre-configure it for security and usability
    • need to make the mobile skin the default and erase the others to free up disk space
    • will need to write a sub-config file for nginx
    • configure for longer messages - 560 characters? 700 characters?
    • configure to make it easy to set up accounts on a node - no e-mail verification
    • enable image upload and display
  • Write a dependency manager for apps
    • some web apps require MySQL, some don't
    • only start MySQL if it's not running already for the ones that don't
  • Write a web app that (de-)configures gateway mode for babeld. I think it's a matter of pushing a route to 0.0.0.0 or not, have to read up on it.
  • Installed the pre-converted MySQL Porteus package from the distro-download archive.
    • Need to pre-configure MySQL for small-ish systems
    • Need to pre-harden MySQL
    • Change the default password to something else.
    • Need to pre-create accounts, databases for all web apps and give them strong passwords. They need to be ready to go when they're started up.
  • Harden /etc/sysctl.conf!