https://www.davehall.com.au/tags/packaging/Recent content in Packaging on Dave Hall ConsultingHugoen-auFri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2011/04/02/fixing-zimbras-broken-debs/Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2011/04/02/fixing-zimbras-broken-debs/As much as I love Zimbra, I find their Debian packaging frustrating. Why do they insist on shipping half broken debs? I can excuse vmware for being too lazy to provide proper descriptions for their packages, although the generic “Best email money can buy” text seems a little lame. Failing to populate the “Provides” field is brain dead. This makes it possible to install mailx on a server running Zimbra without installing another MTA.https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/03/16/making-it-easier-spawn-php-cgi-debian-and-ubuntu/Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/03/16/making-it-easier-spawn-php-cgi-debian-and-ubuntu/Apache is a great web server, but sometimes I need something a bit more lightweight. I already have a bunch of sites using lighttpd, but I’m planning on switching them to nginx. Both nginx and lighttpd use FastCGI for running PHP. Getting FastCGI up and running on Ubuntu (or Debian) involves a bit of manual work which can slow down deployment. The normal process to get nginx and php-cgi up and running is to install the spawn-fcgi package, create a shell script such as /usr/local/bin/php-fastcgi to launch it, then a custom init script, after making both of these executable you need to run update-rc.https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/11/packaging-doctrine-debian-and-ubuntu/Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/11/packaging-doctrine-debian-and-ubuntu/I have been indoctrinated into to the everything on production machines should be packaged school of thought. Rather than bang on about that, I intend to keep this post relatively short and announce that I have created Debian (and Ubuntu) packages for Doctrine, the ORM for PHP. The packaging is rather basic, it gets installed just like any other Debianised PEAR package, that being the files go in /usr/share/php, the package.https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/06/howto-setup-private-package-repository-reprepro-nginx/Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/06/howto-setup-private-package-repository-reprepro-nginx/As the number of servers I am responsible for grows, I have been trying to eliminate all non packaged software in production. Although ubuntu and Debian have massive software repositories, there are some things which just aren’t available yet or are internal meta packages. Once the packages are built they need to be deployed to servers. The simplest way to do this is to run a private apt repository. There are a few options for building an apt repository, but the most popular and simplest seems to be reprepro.https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/04/packaging-drush-and-dependencies-debian/Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000https://www.davehall.com.au/blog/2010/02/04/packaging-drush-and-dependencies-debian/Lately I have been trying to avoid non packaged software being installed on production servers. The main reason for this is to make it easier to apply updates. It also makes it easier to deploy new servers with meta packages when everything is pre packaged. One tool which I am using a lot on production servers is Drupal’s command line tool - drush. Drush is awesome it makes managing Drupal sites so much easier, especially when it comes to applying updates.