[postgis-devel] Moving towards a 1.2.2 release?

[Stephen Frost]

* Paul Ramsey (pramsey at refractions.net) wrote:
> So the client software has to know exactly what distribution it is  
> working against and create its own lwpostgis on the fly to create a  
> new spatial database?  There is a valid need for a template, and the  
> more commonly the template is installed, the better for client  
> software.  We are hoping to create a situation where someone with  
> Mapguide can point it at a windows install of PostgreSQL and just  
> start working, without any special magic administrative steps.   
> That's where the idea of both having template_postgis and asking that  
> it be created as part of the installation comes from.

Erm, perhaps I wasn't clear.  I'm not against having a template_postgis
database if it's there to make it easier for the admin (ie: the person
doing the 'CREATE DATABASE').  Making it easy to create one is fine (and
that's pretty easy to do and doesn't require some kind of complicated
system like what's there now).

Trying to create a database during package installation is completely
inappropriate for an add-on like PostGIS to do.  Client software which
wants to create databases (and, imv, that's not an appropriate thing for
client software to *do*, anyway) can provide the user a set of options
for template databases which exist to create it from, and tell the user
if the database they create is or isn't spatially enabled, etc.

I have to say also that, on all the systems I've set up and maintain,
there are other changes that have to be made for new databases
*anyway*, pg_hba.conf changes being a big obvious one, and can only be
done by admins who change role to the superuser beforehand, so I really
see this as pie-in-the-sky pipe-dreaming anyway...  Client software
which assumes admin rights are available are also *very* annoying and
end up limiting themselves unreasonably when they don't get them
(phppgadmin being a rather annoying one that doesn't handle permission
denied errors very well, and ends up giving the user options that aren't
valid which end up not working but it's not reported back to the
user..).

	Thanks,

		Stephen


> On 2-Jun-07, at 7:46 AM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> 
> >* Paul Ramsey (pramsey at refractions.net) wrote:
> >>We need a "template_postgis" routine in the distribution because we
> >>are going to start recommending that one be created by any packaged
> >>version of PostGIS. This will allow client software without access to
> >>the server to create "spatialized" database with a CREATE DATABASE
> >>sql command, instead of needing to know the location of the magic
> >>lwpostgis.so on the server side.
> >
> >Erm, that doesn't make sense.  Distributions put the lwpostgis.so  
> >into a
> >specific place, and at least on Debian that's the PG lib directory  
> >which
> >means you don't need to know the path to it at all.  In either case
> >though, the problem of knowing where the lwpostgis.so exists has  
> >already
> >been solved by the packaging system, it's not like it moves it around,
> >nor does it take alot of magic to figure out what that place is.
> >Distributions that don't put it into the PG lib directory (and I don't
> >know if there are any such) are pretty silly and could stand to have
> >that fixed *anyway*, imv.
> >
> >If that's the only reason for a 'template_postgis' then it should be
> >removed entirely.  My original assumption was that it was there to  
> >make
> >it easier for admins, which can be a worthwhile goal, not to try to
> >solve some non-problem.
> >
> >Regardless, however, I've got no intention (and, indeed, would be
> >strongly against) of creating a database of *any* kind during package
> >installation under Debian.  There's alot of broken cases where it  
> >won't
> >work, so you can't assume it'll be there in the end, and in general I
> >don't feel it's something which is appropriate for a package like
> >PostGIS to *do* anyway.  Make it easy for an admin to create a
> >template_gis, fine, but don't recommend distributions automatically do
> >it on installation.
> >
> >>That said, the current thing in the distribution does seem a terrible
> >>mess and very debian-specific.
> >
> >Indeed.  My concern is more with the 'terrible mess' than the
> >'debian-specific' piece of it, of course. ;)
> >
> >	Stephen
> >
> >>On 1-Jun-07, at 6:58 AM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> >>
> >>>* Mark Cave-Ayland (mark.cave-ayland at ilande.co.uk) wrote:
> >>>>AFAICT the following issues remain before we can release 1.2.2:
> >>>>
> >>>>1. template_gis - the whole thing needs to be revisited...
> >>>
> >>>Agreed, 100%.  I don't really see why anything for template_gis
> >>>needs to
> >>>be or should be done during build but even beyond that it didn't
> >>>appear
> >>>to be respecting $DESTDIR properly for some reason.  For those
> >>>reasons I
> >>>removed it from the build for the Debian PostGIS 1.2.1 packages.   
> >>>I'm
> >>>also not at all convinced it should even be a part of the main  
> >>>PostGIS
> >>>distribution...
> >>>
> >>>Also, the 'extras/debian' directory should be removed, it's horribly
> >>>outdated, wrong and obsolete.
> >>>
> >>>	Thanks!
> >>>
> >>>		Stephen
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