maria-developers team mailing list archive

[Sergey Petrunya <psergey@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 11:29:49AM +0300, Henrik Ingo wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 12:18 AM, Sergey Petrunya <psergey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Thanks everyone for input on the input so far! I believe I've collected it
> > all and put into the WL entry:
> > http://askmonty.org/worklog/Server-RawIdeaBin/?tid=55
> >
> > * If there is something missing there, please bring that argument up again.
> >
> > * Final call for objections/comments on Step#1. Please voice them now,
> >  otherwise what is described in step #1 may end up implemented.
> 
> Can't think of anything.
> 
> Last point: When uninstalling, the data directory should be left
> untouched. This is safer and seem to be common even with applications
> that don't store as important data as a database does.

There is a problem with this: in step#1, installer doesn't handle upgrades, so
it will not be possible to install and uninstall repeatedly. The first
uninstall will leave the datadir in place, and then the second installation
will refuse to install there.  One will have to go to the install location and
manually remove the datadir. 

This might scare away non-technically-savy users - in Windows XP the windows 
explorer app won't even show the contents of C:\Program Files\, instead it 
will show a message telling you that this is a folder with system files that 
you shouldn't mess with.

One might wonder if we could have the installer to still install into that
path. This presents two challenges:
1. What if the user really wants to start from scratch (e.g. they've set up
   SQL permissions that locked themselves out or something like that).

2A.We'll need to adapt the configuration to the files that are in the datadir,
   e.g. I know that the server won't start if ib_logfile's size on disk
   doesn't match the value in the server configuration. There might be other
   things like this.
   We could settle for doing "null" upgrades only: 
   - if we're creating the datadir, put a file named this-is-mariadb-5.1.38.dat
   - have the installer allow to re-use the datadir if this file is present.

2B.As an alternative, We could have the uninstaller dump the entire database to
   somewhere and then rely on the user to import it back.

BR
 Sergey
-- 
Sergey Petrunia, Software Developer
Monty Program AB, http://askmonty.org
Blog: http://s.petrunia.net/blog