[Mageia-dev] changing apache configuration handling

[Guillaume Rousse]

Hello list.

Our current default apache module configuration files all starts with:
<IfDefine HAVE_FOOBAR>
loadModule FooBar
</IfDefine>

This allow to be smart, and eventually run apache without installed 
modules, which seems a cool idea. However, it also requires to 
explicitely launch apache with -DHAVE_FOOBAR to be able to use the given 
module, which seems however far less compliant with the general 'install 
and run' general idea (and eventually too much technical for some part 
of the target population). In order to mitigate this last point, our 
current sysinit init script automatically compute the list of arguments 
from the list of files present on the system, making it transparent for 
the end user. In the same time, it seems also to defeat the original 
purpose, as to my knowledge, you can't prevent it to automatically add 
-DHAVE_FOOBAR to httpd command line...

Now, with systemd, the general idea is to reduce additional ad-hoc 
behaviour found in init scripts, to focus on just running the services. 
As a consequence, there is no 'find everything installed to pass option 
to override conditional loading' in place. And I'm relunctant to 
reintroduce something whose sole purpose seems to workaround a 
self-imposed constraint.

So, we have the following choice:
- change current behaviour, by keeping conditionals in configuration 
file. To use php, you have to install mod_php, and add -DHAVE_PHP5 in 
/etc/sysconfig/httpd. This means additional configuration is required, 
but also possibility to temporary disable without uninstalling.

- keep current behaviour, by removing conditionals in configuration 
file. This means no additional configuration needed, but also than 
installing implies usage.

What's the general opinion there ?
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