[horde] Automated Easy Install

[Goodyear, Duran]

Recent Joiner, first time poster...

I'm more on the novice side of Linux System Administration, but the
nature of my job means I have to try and keep pace... Horde is
attracting me because of its feature set, and open source nature, but
due to internal "issues" in the office place (personalities, politics) I
don't always have all of the information I need when I go and install a
new piece of software...  So, in this example. I install HORDE, and it
needs a lot of info (LDAP related, email server related) that kills the
install process and just basically ruins the install if you're missing
it. 

I would love for an automated install process that presents this
questions, and allows me to proceed when I have the info, instead of
realizing only later that I've missed some critical bit and having to
redo the process again...   

Failing that, is there any documentation somewhere that has a full
"checkbox by checkbox" "line by line" list of the options and
configuration fields that you are presented with on your first install
of horde?

Thank you. 


] duran goodyear
] web developer
] the university of the arts
] 215.717.6068

-----Original Message-----
From: horde-bounces at lists.horde.org
[mailto:horde-bounces at lists.horde.org] On Behalf Of Martin Fraser
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 4:12 PM
To: horde at lists.horde.org
Subject: [horde] Automated Easy Install

Hey all.

I am thinking about putting together a nice easy install routine for
Horde, something like a script with a curses front end that would ask
questions ala Debian packages and automatically fill in any config files
from Horde. Questions like asking for the domain name and the admin
email name and automatically filling in the relevant details in all
horde apps (loads seem to ask for a system email address for reminders,
changes to a wiki or forum, that kind of thing).

So, I'm doing an initial Q and A with you guys to make sure I've got
everything before I start.

This is based on a small shell script I have that pulls Horde from cvs. 
I thought for a business use this could be used to pull FRAMEWORK_3 and
eventually grow to an auto install and configure.

So, what needs to be done to install a working horde system and is
pulling from CVS the best way?

What I've got so far:
1 - Ask if you want stable (FRAMEWORK_3) or dev (HEAD)
2 - Give a list of available modules and pick what you want.
3 - Ask generic questions for setup.
4 - Ask modules specific questions for each selected module
5 - login to cvs and for each module (including horde and framework)
   a - download
   b - create config files from dist files
   c - Run any installation scripts (ldap or sql)
   d - Auto populate conf.php from answers given earlier

The select list for part 2 and options for part 1 could be determined
automatically from CVS. All questions should be asked at the start so a
busy admin could start the install and let it do it's thing.

Generic questions could be system setup specific. This would include
system domain name, admin user email, LDAP/SQL user passwords,
installation paths and the like, as much being determined automatically
as possible.

I think this could be a good little tool and would greatly speed up the
initial install of a system for an admin to then tweak a little with the
normal setup page.

So, any advice? Am I on the right track here? Is anyone else already
doing something like this? Have I missed something important?

Obviously details are to follow once I get started.

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Martin...

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