[Mageia-sysadm] [forums-discuss] Re: updating sysadmin privileges in forum config

Wolfgang Bornath molch.b at googlemail.com
Tue Mar 27 10:16:00 CEST 2012


First let me express my appreciation for putting so much time into
explanations of points I now understand more clearly than before.

2012/3/26 Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org>:
>
> For example :
> http://svnweb.mageia.org/adm/puppet/modules/phpbb/templates/config.php?revision=1625&view=markup
> that's config.php. Anyone knowing php ( or asp, or jsp ) would
> intuitively understand the format ( ie, database is a variable given
> somewhere else )
>
> The git checkout url is in another file, to get it :
>
> git clone git://git.mageia.org/forum/ foo
>
> and we just remove "phpBB/install" after checkout.

Yes, that is a must after installation, forum software checks for that.

> When I mean "being up to date", i mean using the same tool we use for
> others packages to know there is a update, etc.
> IE, having the package up to date. The same goes for "quality". Web
> developpers tend to focus on the use case of "I have a shared space and
> I cannot change nything to it", which is not our case. We can change
> apache config, we can put some stuff outside of the web root, etc.

When we (mandrivauser.de) set up phpBB (and later phpBB3) we used
Mandriva as server os and there was not much to change in apache
(forum related), I remember we had to change one setting in php.ini,
that was all. In fact we had (still have now on Debian) a similar
setup, except that we installed phpBB directly without git.

> But that's a difficult problem to solve, and in the mean term, we should
> have a solution, and I think therefor sticking to stock software is the
> best compromise. I am aware that some mod would make stuff better ( for
> example, to have a decent url, helping for visibility, etc ) and i am
> sure that they are all enhancing the forum ( I mean, no one will do a
> mod to make it worst ), but they are not free in term of ressources to
> integrate.
>
> So that's a tradeoff. It is better, but then you have to do some work
> for each upgrade, etc.

Yes. But as I see in the forum, requests for changes are almost all in
the /styles section, that are not MODs, just changing of lines in the
templates. So no security related software involved. Examples: moving
or adding a line with a link, etc. or another icon set. Of course this
has to be documented because it has to be changed at each update.

> Now we decided to use phpbb, I guess we will stick to it. A migration
> would take too much time, and despites having a setup that can be
> improved ( to my eyes ), it seems to do the job.

Yes.

> But the point is still valid,  if people wish to help or think they can
> do a better job than us ( and I think we are not perfect, I do not deny
> ), we can arrange something.

No, through all these discussions (here and in the forum
(unfortunately I have the time to read both)) I never had the
impression that somebody wrote he could do better than your team.

> Part of the problem is first what do people mean by "admin".

Yes. I explained that several times but I realize that this was
probably only in forum discussions.

> To me, this mean "system admin", and even if I tried to use sysadmin for
> that meaning, I am sure that I have slipped more than once.
> And while it may not have been obvious, I only speak of the sysadmin
> side of the thing.

Yes. OTOH I (and others) never meant "sysadmin" with "admin". A
sysadmin is an admin for a special purpose, that's why he has those 3
extra letters (sys) in the name. A forum-admin also has a special
purpose, that's why he has "forum-" in his name. So "admin" is a
rather generic term which can mean anything. To know what kind of
admin is meant you need to add the prefix or extra letters.

> From what I remember :
>
> - there is mga-sysadmin group, 10 person, who ( for the forum ) :
>  - access the server, databases and can commit to puppet or modify
> directly the db, and grant access to git
>
> - there is the mga-forum_developer group, of 3 person ( now 2 ), who :
>  - have write access to the code of phpbb hosted in our git ( see url
> before )
>  - should have enough access to upgrade the forum ( but do not know )

> the deployment is planned to be automatised, but that's not done ( my
> point was that sysadmin will do it by hand until sufficiently annoyed,
> and until the know how to automate it, until then we have to do the
> upgrade by hand to see what need to be coded, or wait for a patch for
> that ). I cannot speak for the others, but I do not plan to blindly code
> without doing a few test runs so without request to upgrade forum.

Just to give you an idea how much has changed so far I posted an url
of the changelogs (more than 150 bug fixes) a little earlier in this
thread. The update can be done automatically, but only in a custom
setup with a custom forum. If you have only changed templates you can
do it as well automatically but you have to repeat the template
changes ion the new version. If you have implemented MODs or otherwise
changed the code you have to do the updates manually which normally
takes me (roughly) 2 work days, but I am a slow worker :).
You get a set of "changed files" and normally you just copy them over
the old files. If you changed something in those files (and had it
documented!) then you have to do the same change in the new file. And
you can not update from n to n+2, you have to go from n to n+1 to n+2.

Then you start testing, no matter which setup you have. When I do
changes or an update I do it locally first for testing, later on the
server. This is about code changes or updates, it's not so hard.

But what about changes in the template? Most requests of forum users
involve only templates (like moving or adding a forum line with a
link). These changes can be done (and have already been done in the
Mageia forums) by the forum admin in the ACP without involving git or
sysadmins or mga-forum_developers. Hopefully those are documented.

> on the side of forum management, well, I do not know. That's the part
> where someone step in and complete my mail.

Well, in a forum we only need 2 kinds of "admins":
 - the forum admin who is visible in the forum, participates in
discussions, a contact for users in case of requests or complaints, a
contact in case of issues between users (if the Global Moderators are
not able to solve it). Here in fact it is the human social and
communicative side which is more important than technical knowledge.
He is the "team leader" of the moderators, doing organisational things
in the forum (like changing settings in the ACP). That is the
important position which was not filled most of the time up to now.
 - the technical forum admin. Somebody with phpbb knowledge who can
work with mga-forum_developer_group and/or sysadmin team to do code
changes and updates. He is in close contact with "forum admin" who
forwards requests of forum users or issues of technical nature
occuring in the daily life of the forum to him. He is the "bridge" to
sysadmin group. Of course this can be somebody of the sysadmin group
or forum_devels as well. He must not be present or communicative in
the forum.

OTOH these 2 positions can be filled by one person as well but both
are equally important.

-- 
wobo


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