dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

2010/1/28 Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx>

> Thanks Bob,
>
> I don't know how many people are currently interested in running DHIS2 on
> Ubuntu, but I don't think it is negligible, and I would like to see it
> increase. The reason this came up now, is that I have been trying to guide
> people in Malawi over IM, not an efficient process. Installation needs to be
> made as easy as possible - preferably also in "standalone" conditions, i.e.
> where you bring a USB stick or CD to a computer with no or sloooow internet
> connection. We should not require end users to have to touch the command
> line or know about config files.
>

This is exactly what dhis2-live does using h2.  Unpack and run.  And its
platform neutral.

There are several approaches, and we could offer more than one:
>
> 0) Write out the steps (including for Postgres and Mysql) in a clear and
> easy to follow manner, prominently displayed on dhis2.org
>

OK. I can do that.

>
> 1) An installer that basically just unzips everything you need. This was
> done already 3-4 years ago in Kerala by Øystein, using BitRock (he also made
> a CD image that installed DHIS2 and Mysql on Windows, then created a
> partition for Linux, installed the very lightweight http://wolvix.org/ distro
> with Tomcat and pointed it to the same Mysql database on the Windows
> partition).
>
> 2) A more conventional installer using IzPack that does what is required
>
> 3) "meta-debs" as you suggest
>

You can yourself just go into dhis2/tools/dhis2deb and modify the
hibernate.properties to connect to a postgres database instead.  And add
postgres to dependencies.  Then make to create a dhis2-postgres.deb
version.  Its still a bit complicated because you'd have to also create the
dhis2 database in postgres as part of the installation.  (That's also what
is nice about h2 :-)

Ideally IMHO we might have a super-admin view of dhis without the database
connection with a set of simple web steps to setup the connection rather
than fiddling manually with hibernate.properties.  Not unlike the openmrs
installer.  A puzzle to solve is that we use the same database for user
authentication that we use for data.  So without connection you can't log in
... and without login you can't set up connections ... etc.  Would be nice
one day to separate these.

Cheers
Bob

>
> 4) Provide downloadable Ubuntu virtual machines images with everything
> nicely set up
>
> My take is that I could do 0) right now, 3) could follow when you have some
> time, and 4) perhaps longer term.
>
> Knut
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 12:08 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> The deb package as it is currently is set up with dependencies on java and
>> tomcat (so they will be triggered to install if necessary).  By default it
>> will just run out of the box using an h2 database in /opt/dhis2/database.
>>
>> I held off on the postgres dependency because I know there are also mysql
>> users out there so it didn't seem right to make it a dependency.  So
>> currently you would be required to:
>>
>> 1.  install dhis2 from deb
>> 2.  install postgres (apt-get install )
>> 3.  configure hibernate.properties manually
>>
>> I guess what would be useful hand-holding would be to have a
>> dhis2-postgres meta package which does the above three, though I'm not sure
>> entirely how to handle dependencies where dhis2 is not yet available from
>> ubuntu repositories.  Basically this would just contain just the
>> hibernate.properties and the dependency information.  A dhis2-mysql package
>> would look very similar.
>>
>> One solution would be to host the debs in a repository on dhis2.org.
>> Then it would just be a case of getting users to add http://dhis2.org to
>> their software sources.
>>
>> A simpler (and much uglier) solution is to create dhis2-postgres as an
>> alternative version of dhis2 package with the exception that this has the
>> webapp as well as the postgres dependency and hibernate.properties
>>
>> Cheers
>> Bob
>>
>> PS.  How real is the use case.  ie is it worth putting effort into this?
>> I didn't get the sense that there was too much interest in the deb.  It
>> seems to be a useful little curiosity.
>>
>> 2010/1/28 Ola Hodne Titlestad <olatitle@xxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I think it would be really useful to have a .deb package that is set up
>>> to use postgres out of the box.
>>>
>>> Ideally the DHIS deb install process should trigger installs of any other
>>> needed packages, like java, tomcat, postgres. Would that be possible?
>>>
>>> Ola
>>> ----------
>>>
>>> 2010/1/28 Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>>>  There is some good info at
>>>> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs-core/dhis2/trunk/annotate/head:/tools/dhis2deb/Readme.txt<http://bazaar.launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs-core/dhis2/trunk/annotate/head:/tools/dhis2deb/Readme.txt>
>>>>
>>>> But it is hidden away in an obscure place and not complete enough to be
>>>> truly helpful for an installation - unlike the DHIS2 Live or  IzPack
>>>> installers we have for Windows.
>>>>
>>>> k
>>>>
>>>> 2010/1/28 Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> See dhis2/tools/dhis2deb/Readme.txt in the repo.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Knut Staring
>>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Knut Staring
>