[Koha-devel] Koha installation procedure

[Jared Camins-Esakov]

Hello all.

I am interested in reimplementing the Koha installation procedure to
meet the following requirements:

* File installation and configuration should be separate from each other
(necessary for creating a port compliant with the FreeBSD ports system's
unspoken best practices, and probably other packaging systems' best
practices as well)
* Configuration should be possible at any time after installation (so on
systems where the sysadmin is not also the Koha admin, the sysadmin
doesn't have to wait for the Koha admin)
* It should be possible to specify ALL options to the installation and
configuration scripts using command line switches or environment
variables, or something else that doesn't require user intervention (so
that the setup process for the entire system could be scripted [I've
done this, so I imagine other people do it too]; the auto-configuration
file doesn't really lend itself to scripting, in my opinion)
* It should be possible to install Koha without having GRANT privileges
on the MySQL server (or root access to the server), if an account has
already been created for Koha's use

My plan is to start by separating the installation and configuration
into two separate scripts, both using the Install.pm module. I am not
sure how to implement the second issue. Perhaps have the installation
set up the intranet module temporarily, and then use a one-time
web-based configurator a la Refbase (refbase.sourceforge.net)? My first
thought was to install the Install.pm module in site_perl and the
configuration script in $PREFIX/sbin (for example), but I guess
installing anything outside of Apache's area should be avoided? My
preference on the third issue is to use command line arguments, so I'll
also look into that if I get the go-ahead. It looks like my fourth
requirement is fairly easy to fill by just adding a command line
argument (or environment variable) to specify "use existing database
user so-and-so."

Any thoughts on this? Anything I've suggested that is a Really Bad Idea?
Anything that should be done differently than I suggested? Anything that
you'd like to see implemented in the installer? If no one has any
problems with my suggestions, and the current maintainer of the
installer is willing to consider my patches, I'll start work on this.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks.
-- Jared Camins-Esakov

P.S. If the consensus of the list is that I should go forward,
volunteers who would be willing to test my changes under
Linux/Windows/anything-besides-FreeBSD would be most appreciated!

-- 
Jared Camins-Esakov
E-mail: address@hidden