Mailing List Archive: Bricolage: users

Lenny, apache2 & downgrading postgres

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simonw at digitalcraftsmen

Mar 5, 2009, 11:04 AM

Post #1 of 4 (2131 views)
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Lenny, apache2 & downgrading postgres

Hi all,

As Paul mentioned the other day we've been rolling out our new Bricolage
CMS instance to production. I just thought I'd share a couple of things
we've found but haven't had time to get to the bottom of yet.

1. Bricolage won't run on Debian Lenny. It doesn't appear to be a
Bricolage problem, it's a more generic problem with Imager, mod_perl and
libc6 causing it to segfault as soon as it loads. We haven't had a
chance to narrow down yet, getting a production system out of the door
is taking priority :-/

2. Bricolage doesn't like the threaded worker in apache2. Some mod_perl
apps run happily using this MPM but Bricolage definitely prefers
pre-fork to avoid segfaults. This is probably common knowledge but it's
not documented anywhere obvious in the Bricolage install docs. A patch
will be forthcoming when we get a moment.

Lastly, we've been developing using the Ubuntu VM image which has
Postgres 8.3 installed. We're now trying to clone Bricolage onto a
production Debian Etch machine which is running Postgres 8.1.

For policy reasons it's not possible to update the Etch version and when
we try and run in the clone we get a ton of sql errors, presumably
because it's using some 8.3 syntax that 8.1 doesn't understand.

Does anyone have any experience of backloading from an 8.3 to an 8.1
Postgres version ?

It's probably something silly but we're tying ourselves up in knots
today :-/

S.

--
Digital Craftsmen Ltd
Exmouth House, 3 Pine Street, London. EC1R 0JH
t 020 7183 1410 f 020 7099 5140 m 07951 758698
w http://www.digitalcraftsmen.net/

david at kineticode

Mar 5, 2009, 11:36 AM

Post #2 of 4 (2037 views)
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Re: Lenny, apache2 & downgrading postgres [In reply to]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:04 AM, Simon Wilcox wrote:

> 1. Bricolage won't run on Debian Lenny. It doesn't appear to be a
> Bricolage problem, it's a more generic problem with Imager, mod_perl
> and libc6 causing it to segfault as soon as it loads. We haven't had
> a chance to narrow down yet, getting a production system out of the
> door is taking priority :-/

Packaging systems FTL!

> 2. Bricolage doesn't like the threaded worker in apache2. Some
> mod_perl apps run happily using this MPM but Bricolage definitely
> prefers pre-fork to avoid segfaults. This is probably common
> knowledge but it's not documented anywhere obvious in the Bricolage
> install docs. A patch will be forthcoming when we get a moment.

Prefork is the preferred MPM for mod_perl. Patches for the Bricolage
docs welcome, though, as I'm sure we're prefork-only.

> Lastly, we've been developing using the Ubuntu VM image which has
> Postgres 8.3 installed. We're now trying to clone Bricolage onto a
> production Debian Etch machine which is running Postgres 8.1.

Why would you do a thing like that?

> For policy reasons it's not possible to update the Etch version and
> when we try and run in the clone we get a ton of sql errors,
> presumably because it's using some 8.3 syntax that 8.1 doesn't
> understand.

You'll need to use 8.1's pg_dump to dump the 8.3 database.

> Does anyone have any experience of backloading from an 8.3 to an 8.1
> Postgres version ?
>
> It's probably something silly but we're tying ourselves up in knots
> today :-/

If that doesn't work, ask in the PostgreSQL channels.

HTH,

David

paulo at digitalcraftsmen

Mar 6, 2009, 5:31 AM

Post #3 of 4 (2032 views)
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Re: Lenny, apache2 & downgrading postgres [In reply to]

Hi,

I've done a bit of thinking and tying bits together in my head now I've had
a chance to step away, and Bricolage now installs and runs on Debian Lenny.

David E. Wheeler wrote:
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:04 AM, Simon Wilcox wrote:
>
>> 1. Bricolage won't run on Debian Lenny. It doesn't appear to be a
>> Bricolage problem, it's a more generic problem with Imager, mod_perl
>> and libc6 causing it to segfault as soon as it loads. We haven't had a
>> chance to narrow down yet, getting a production system out of the door
>> is taking priority :-/
>
> Packaging systems FTL!

Packaging systems work really well provided you notice the changes between
full releases of your O/S. Apache2 on Debian has always come with worker
enabled by default. However previous versions of Debian would remove
apache_mpm_worker and install apache_mpm_prefork when you install mod_perl.

This is no longer the case due to mod_perl being able to work (for some
apps) with either version, so you now need to manually pick to install
apache2_mpm_prefork.

I discovered this by doing a final test of the changes I'd made earlier and
Bricolage started straight out of the box.

I've updated the installation tips for Debian/Ubuntu in the wiki. Bricolage
is now a four step install process on Debian and takes about 10 minutes,
which is nice.

Once we've released 1.10.7 and 1.11.2, I'll upgrade the VMWare Ubuntu
images and release a Debian one.

> Prefork is the preferred MPM for mod_perl. Patches for the Bricolage
> docs welcome, though, as I'm sure we're prefork-only.

The installation process has been changed to require a preforked Apache2
since otherwise you get nasty segfaults.

>> Lastly, we've been developing using the Ubuntu VM image which has
>> Postgres 8.3 installed. We're now trying to clone Bricolage onto a
>> production Debian Etch machine which is running Postgres 8.1.
>
> Why would you do a thing like that?

Because PG 8.1 is the highest version that comes with Debian Etch (the
previous version of Debian) and 8.3 comes with Ubuntu and therefore the
BricVM and all our other production systems are Debian rather than Ubuntu.
However it now all works and I'm a happy man :-)

regards,

Paul.

--
Paul Orrock Digital Craftsmen
Lead SysAdmin www.digitalcraftsmen.net
Exmouth House, 3 Pine Street, London, EC1R 0JH
Tel: 020 7183 1410 Fax: 020 7099 5140

david at kineticode

Mar 6, 2009, 9:15 AM

Post #4 of 4 (2040 views)
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Re: Lenny, apache2 & downgrading postgres [In reply to]

On Mar 6, 2009, at 5:31 AM, Paul Orrock wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've done a bit of thinking and tying bits together in my head now
> I've had a chance to step away, and Bricolage now installs and runs
> on Debian Lenny.

Thanks.

> I've updated the installation tips for Debian/Ubuntu in the wiki.
> Bricolage is now a four step install process on Debian and takes
> about 10 minutes, which is nice.

Yeah, once someone has done the work to figure things out and document
them, it's a good deal.

> Once we've released 1.10.7 and 1.11.2, I'll upgrade the VMWare
> Ubuntu images and release a Debian one.

paulo++

> The installation process has been changed to require a preforked
> Apache2 since otherwise you get nasty segfaults.

I saw that, thanks, good call.

>> Why would you do a thing like that?
>
> Because PG 8.1 is the highest version that comes with Debian Etch
> (the previous version of Debian) and 8.3 comes with Ubuntu and
> therefore the BricVM and all our other production systems are Debian
> rather than Ubuntu. However it now all works and I'm a happy man :-)

This is why I detest Debian. But you knew that already, didn't you? ;-P

Best,

David

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