Mapbender test platform

[Arnulf Christl]

Ulrich Rothstein wrote:

[...]
>>> Von: Astrid Emde [mailto:astrid.emde at ccgis.de]
>>> Gesendet: Freitag, 3. November 2006 11:01
>>> An: dev at mapbender.osgeo.org
>>> Betreff: Re: [Mapbender-dev] branches, tags and svn ...
>>>
>>> Hi Michael,
>>>
>>>> For users and want-to-contributors like me, what is the way
>>> to go to
>>>> submit new code or code changes or invoke a discussion on these
>>>> changes? Are there development branches in the repository
>>> that are not
>>>> directly linked to latest stable branch, i.e is everybody at the
>>>> moment committing into trunk? Is there a way to test new or changed
>>>> code?
> 
> The normal way is to contact this list and all contributors are invited to
> vote. To manage the code in developer-branches is a good idea, but I don't
> know how to manage svn-authorisations for the branches (if we need that at
> all(?)).
> In the moment the testplatform is our installation 'mapbender_dev' (on
> wms1.ccgis.de). But there is no access from 'outside' to checkout the svn
> sources.
> The mapbender.org-server has not the resources to act as a test-server.
> But there  is a discussion in progress with the osgeo...
> 
> best regards
> ULi
[...]

Hello,
the "discussion in progress with OSGeo" regarding a test server has stalled midway due to several reasons including that our administrator of trust was knocked out for some time. Mapbender developers are now requesting for a development platform on OSGeo infrastructure again. Mapbender is currently using the CN SVN for code management. It should be possible to use an SVN client on that server to access and update from this SVN. For development purposes it should also be possible to configure Apache with htaccess limiting access to directories to be able to implement OWS security proxy functionality, https should also be available including Port 80 and 403 access from that server to the internet (which regularly is turned off on standard boxes). The installation needs PHP5, it should be possible to configure all PHP settings on that machine. A PostgreSQL/PostGIS database is required for operation (additionally a MySQL instance would be helpful to get all debugging done at one 
place). Obviously it should be possible to up- and download files to that server. Code and resources will only eat up minimal disk space. 

All this feels like it would best be hosted on a virtual machine that can be hacked and configured independent of the other OSGeo infrastructure. Ideally it would be possible to duplicate this virtual machine and have a life demo server that always hosts the current version. The operating system platform is fairly irrelevant, any Linunix will do, preferably Ubuntu, Debian or FreeBSD (no SuSE).

Currently most development takes place on servers hosted by CCGIS which is not practical for several reasons. It cannot be opened for more extensive use by other developers due to security restrictions implemented to suit the privacy needs of some customers. The machines are used in a variety of projects requiring individual settings and last but not least these are dedicated business server operated by one company which feels wrong.

We are in the exceptionally cool situation that there are so many productive Mapbender sites online that  there is no real need for a dedicated demo server. Additionally there is no hurry as we can continue to work as is but we wanted to restart this discussion because there has been interest by developers to join development more closely. 

Best regards, 
Arnulf.