[horde] horde_prefs table doesn't exist...

[Andy Dorman]

On 01/14/2015 06:13 PM, Michael Robinson wrote:
>>> I'm trying to figure
>>> out if I have the permission to create the table, but I'm not terribly
>>> familiar with MariaDB.
>>
>> That's outside the scope of Horde. I suggest to read up on either
>> PostgreSQL or MySQL/MariaDB to get familiar with creating databases
>> and granting access permissions to database users.
>
> Outside the scope of horde?  Don't the developers of horde work with
> these databases nearly every single day?  I thought postgresql was
> considered an advanced database choice, so I switched for preferences
> only to mariadb which is an equivalent to mysql.  I'm currently trying
> to set up myPhpAdmin, but that requires adding mysql support to php on
> my backend server which involves a recompile of php-5.6.0.  I'm finding
> documentation for MariaDB incredibly hard to groke.  I have a simple
> question of where are the log files so I can watch what is happening and
> see what the responses are on a transaction by transaction basis, heck
> of a time googling trying to get an answer for that.  Hopefully, if
> there is a permissions and ownership issue, phpMyAdmin will help me fix
> that.  I can say using mysql from the command line on my horde server,
> I've been able to hook to the backend mariadb server to create and
> delete a table as horde.
>
> The oddity of this problem, I'm sure someone else is running into it, is
> that all of the tables except for horde_prefs get created in the
> postgresql database.  Strange after changing the database and apparently
> having the permissions correct that I can't get a horde_prefs table
> using MariaDB either.  There might be a bug in horde-5.2.3 preventing
> the creation of the horde_prefs table.  This severely impacts the
> utility of the framework as you lose important preferences every
> time you log out.
>
> I've ruled out having old versions of any of the horde framework
> components.
>

OK, I am using PostgreSQL, but the SQL admin commands are almost 
identical to MySQL/MariaDB and here is what I did to get our service 
running under Debian and connected to the db...

I followed the steps (mostly) from the link below with a couple of 
exceptions based on our unique set up (dedicated postgreSQL and LDAP db 
servers for gollem and everything else respectively, 15 load balanced 
web and IMAP servers, 150+ domains, and a couple of other little things):

https://www.howtoforge.com/install-horde-5-webmail-for-ispconfig-on-debian-wheezy

I also used http://wiki.horde.org/HowTo for reference if I was confused 
about something, but many of the debian docs are outdated (I need to see 
about helping to update them ;-)

Exceptions:

- I did not use Pear so I skipped steps 2 & 3.  For steps 1 and 4 I 
installed the list of Debian php packages at the end of this email 
manually using aptitude (the Debian text-based graphical package 
management program...but it does the same things as apt).  I just did 
this on 15 servers this past weekend, so I know it works.

NOTE.  The package list below only applies to the list of added services 
we needed to offer, like scanning outbound email for viruses.  Your list 
will likely be very different.

- I used postgreSQL (on a central, dedicated db server) instead of 
MySQL/MariaDB. Aptitude installs the db and gets it up and running. 
Then all I needed to do then was use the command line "psql" to follow 
step 5 and it installed ALL the tables.  I did this on both a local db 
server and an Amazon AWS RDS server several times in the past 6 months 
with no problems.

PostgreSQL docs are at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/manuals/

- I skipped steps 2, 3, 8 & 9

Here is the package list I used this past weekend:

     clamdscan (for scanning outgoing email attachments)
     php-cache
     php-console-table
     php-horde-webmail

In addition to the many dependencies installed for php-horde-webmail we 
also installed:
     php-horde-activesync
     php-horde-elasticsearch
     php-horde-feed
     php-horde-hashtable
     php-horde-imsp
     php-horde-ldap (we use LDAP for auth, address books and preferences)
     php-horde-lz4
     php-horde-memcache
     php-horde-oauth
     php-horde-openexchange
     php-horde-pack
     php-horde-passwd
     php-horde-pdf
     php-horde-scheduler
     php-horde-service-facebook
     php-horde-service-gravatar
     php-horde-service-twitter
     php-horde-service-urlshortener
     php-horde-service-weather
     php-horde-syncml
     php-horde-test
     php-horde-text-filter-csstidy
     php-xml-parser
     php-xml-serializer
     php5-apcu
     php5-curl
     php5-fpm
     php5-geoip
     php5-igbinary
     php5-imagick
     php5-intl
     php5-json
     php5-mcrypt
     php5-pgsql
     php5-ssh2
     php5-xdebug
     php5-xmlrpc


Finally, I do not want to overstate it or scare anyone off...but setting 
up and running a full-featured web service like Horde (or any 
full-featured webmail service) both safely and securely requires 
knowledge of administering and configuring and using (not just 
installing) databases, web servers, IMAP servers, smtp servers, and even 
virus and spam scanners.  If you do NOT know how to safely set up and 
configure these or where to buy the service, you need to find someone 
that does.  It also requires you know at least a little bit about 
setting up and managing system/server logs and SSL certificates.

Good luck.

-- 
Andy Dorman