Difference between revisions of "OSGeo Portal Site"

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This page is intended to document issues, policies and plans with regard to transitioning to the new Drupal based CMS as the OSGeo front end.
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#REDIRECT [[Archived]]
  
= New Site =
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This page documented issues, policies and plans with regard to the drupal website available at http://old.www.osgeo.org
The site currently lives at http://community.osgeo.org/. The formal migration to http://www.osgeo.org will be announced separately. The transition process and migration of HTML pages has started.
 
  
= General Plan =  
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= Portal Site (Archived) =
  
The general plan is to move from using the CollabNet "www.osgeo.org" project as the public web presence for OSGeo to using a Drupal based CMS. In the short term this will not affect other osgeo.org sub-domains such as those for projects (MapGuide,
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The OSGeo Portal site contains stable documents and lives at http://old.www.osgeo.org/ and was formally managed by [[WebCom]]. This Wiki was a place to collaborate on new documents, refine and revisit existing policies, find all current pages in the [http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Category:Content_Development Category:Content Development]. Once approved they become stable and migrate to the Portal Site where they are translated and maintained using the [[Portal Translation Status]] page.  
etc), nor for committee work which will remain the same.  It is anticipated that other items hosted on the CollabNet infrastructure will eventually be transitioned to new homes though that is a longer term issue.  
 
  
= Issues =  
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== LDAP and membership ==
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* A mechanism for new users to join the web site and for this to update the LDAP backend database is currently being set up. This work is integrated with the [[Membership Application]] project.
  
== Content Migration ==
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= Policies =  
* We need to port over content.  Apparently this can mostly be done by pasting our existing content/* HTML files into Drupal, though various details need to be worked out and we need to pick a point at which we would stop updating the old web site and complete the transition.
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The portal site is hosted by a professional provider. The [[Infrastructure Transition Plan]] and [[Migration Documentation]] details the installation. CSS file access, patches, LDAP connectivity and lower level system administration are managed by [[SAC]].
* We need to update the [[News Queue]] process for announcements on the Drupal site.
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* [[Website Committee|WebCom]] is responisible for the content, and content management policy.  
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* [[SAC]] is responsible for maintaining the software, and host system.
  
mloskot's been thinking hard about automating migration of content both from flat files and from this mediawiki install - for pages here that really should become more 'official'. his linkdump:
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== CMS Permissions ==
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The role defines what a user is allowed to do and what she gets to see. [[WebCom]] votes for users to get roles.  
  
* http://drupal.org/project/devel
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=== admins ===
* http://drupal.org/node/77352
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Users with role "admins" can check permissions when logged in.
* http://drupal.org/node/62954
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* "admins" can create (currently only local - yuck) users, configure all modules that are installed, edit all settings and perform all operations.  
* http://drupal.org/node/68153#comment-127897
 
  
== LDAP and membership ==
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=== anonymous user ===
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* "anonymous users" can read pages, this is the public, unrestricted view.
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=== authenticated user ===
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* can look at other user pages
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* can see pre-releases
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* can create "own events", what is that, do we want that?
  
* We need a mechanism for new users to join the web site and for this to update the LDAP backend database. Currently the drupal site is using the LDAP database in read-only fashion (as far as I know).  This work might be integrated with the [[Membership Application]] project.
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=== project manager ===
* At transition we will need to broadly explain the issues with regard to distinct userids for the main web site (and all non-CN stuff), and the CN sub-sites like mapguide, and the committee websites.  
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* "project managers" can create pages and add content but cannot change the structure, layout and cannot activate or take away modules. All members of VisCom should have this role for the VisCom "instance", "pages" or "sections".  
  
== Hosting ==
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=== translator ===
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* "translators" are somewhat more restricted in creating new items than project managers are but they can access the translation tools.
  
* What system will we be running the portal off?  Perhaps an OSU Open Source Lab system?  Or a Telascience system?
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All roles can be combined and adding functionality up.
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If you are interested in translating content please read the description on [[OSGeo Portal Translations]] and contact [[WebCom]] to obtain a Drupal account.
  
* We have a vhost now available at osgeo.osuosl.org - details of how we can get stuff installed onto it are being worked out - updates as they happen.
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== Editing Site Themes ==
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OSGeo website themes are managed through SVN.  Any changes to the themes must first be done through SVN and then a user with adequate permissions must do an update on the test and primary servers.  SVN checkout is available to anonymous but commits are done through privileged user accounts.  Here is the command for checking out the themes from SVN:
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* svn co http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/webcom/themes
  
* See [[Infrastructure Transition Plan]] for details on overall transition off CN.
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When a change is ready to be tested, do an update on the test.osgeo.net server.  When it is ready do an update on the primary server:
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cd /var/www/html/themes
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sudo svn update
  
== Endless arguments about Plone/Drupal ==
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= New Sites =
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Placeholder for information on the basic process of creating new sites.  In these examples the name of your new site is called new_name (e.g. community.osgeo.org) or new_host (e.g. community)
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# Copy folder drupal/sites/default to drupal/sites/new_name
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# Create drupal database for new instance called drupal_new_host
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# Create apache vhost configuration file in /etc/httpd/conf.d/hosts/new_host.conf - copy from an existing one to see the pattern
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# Add DNS entry - pointing to the IP used in the above step
  
* How certain are we that Drupal is the right CMS for us? John Graham notes that it has performance issues and is stuck using old versions of some components (like it won't work with PHP5).
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= Troubleshooting =
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When going to http://www.osgeo.org/admin/ you may see various errors listed there.  Most of them are usually just ''page not found'' errors for whatever reason.  But sometimes the error shows that something is broke and needs fixing or refreshing. Here are a couple of them and ways to fix them.
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== Table 'search_dataset' is marked as crashed and should be repaired ==
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* Don't ask me how MySQL lets a table "crash", but the fix is easy, so easy you'll wonder why the database can't do it itself. Log into the database and run the commands like so:
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sudo mysql -u root
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\r drupal_osgeo
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repair table search_dataset
  
* Drupal 4.7 is php5. See also the irc discussion about this http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2006-08-15.log from 09:44
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== Last cron run did not complete. ==
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* This may be related to the above error about tables going stale, but has appeared on its own as well.  We have a cron job that regularly runs the cron.php page.  This page updates the search indexes and does some other housekeeping. The fact that it has been failing, and that some table has had problems, is not surprising.
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* Some settings are here, including a re-indexing option and some cron settings: http://www.osgeo.org/admin/settings/search
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* cron failures are largely due to errors in some module or from memory limitations. Debugging this can be a real pain.  Basically you have to know which modules you recently turned on, then turn it off, re-run cron.php (from command line on the server itself), then check the admin log again.  Or increase memory and try again.
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* If Drupal user’s hosting doesn’t support Cron, you can try Drupal module https://drupal.org/project/EasyCron.
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* To fix it the last time, I increased php memory options from 16MB to 32MB and it seems to work fine now.
  
= Policies =  
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== Tutorials ==
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Add any links to documents or videos showing how to create/manage content.
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* Adding a new simple page: a [http://www.screencast.com/users/spatialguru/folders/Jing/media/1f4806a2-8a0e-4329-9d7f-4dfa46c41e11 video] by Tyler for helping local chapters learn how to add a page.
  
* Should we try to retain the existing heirarchy as much as possible?  ie. content/foundation/faq.html  If the paths remain the same it will greatly reduce "link breakage" issues.
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[[Category: Drupal]]
* [[Website Committee|WebCom]] is responisible for the content, and content management policy.
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[[Category: Infrastructure]]
* [[SAC]] is responsible for maintaining the software, and host system.
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[[Category: WebCom]]
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[[Category: Services]]

Latest revision as of 23:17, 6 May 2018

Redirect to:

This page documented issues, policies and plans with regard to the drupal website available at http://old.www.osgeo.org

Portal Site (Archived)

The OSGeo Portal site contains stable documents and lives at http://old.www.osgeo.org/ and was formally managed by WebCom. This Wiki was a place to collaborate on new documents, refine and revisit existing policies, find all current pages in the Category:Content Development. Once approved they become stable and migrate to the Portal Site where they are translated and maintained using the Portal Translation Status page.

LDAP and membership

  • A mechanism for new users to join the web site and for this to update the LDAP backend database is currently being set up. This work is integrated with the Membership Application project.

Policies

The portal site is hosted by a professional provider. The Infrastructure Transition Plan and Migration Documentation details the installation. CSS file access, patches, LDAP connectivity and lower level system administration are managed by SAC.

  • WebCom is responisible for the content, and content management policy.
  • SAC is responsible for maintaining the software, and host system.

CMS Permissions

The role defines what a user is allowed to do and what she gets to see. WebCom votes for users to get roles.

admins

Users with role "admins" can check permissions when logged in.

  • "admins" can create (currently only local - yuck) users, configure all modules that are installed, edit all settings and perform all operations.

anonymous user

  • "anonymous users" can read pages, this is the public, unrestricted view.

authenticated user

  • can look at other user pages
  • can see pre-releases
  • can create "own events", what is that, do we want that?

project manager

  • "project managers" can create pages and add content but cannot change the structure, layout and cannot activate or take away modules. All members of VisCom should have this role for the VisCom "instance", "pages" or "sections".

translator

  • "translators" are somewhat more restricted in creating new items than project managers are but they can access the translation tools.

All roles can be combined and adding functionality up. If you are interested in translating content please read the description on OSGeo Portal Translations and contact WebCom to obtain a Drupal account.

Editing Site Themes

OSGeo website themes are managed through SVN. Any changes to the themes must first be done through SVN and then a user with adequate permissions must do an update on the test and primary servers. SVN checkout is available to anonymous but commits are done through privileged user accounts. Here is the command for checking out the themes from SVN:

When a change is ready to be tested, do an update on the test.osgeo.net server. When it is ready do an update on the primary server:

cd /var/www/html/themes
sudo svn update

New Sites

Placeholder for information on the basic process of creating new sites. In these examples the name of your new site is called new_name (e.g. community.osgeo.org) or new_host (e.g. community)

  1. Copy folder drupal/sites/default to drupal/sites/new_name
  2. Create drupal database for new instance called drupal_new_host
  3. Create apache vhost configuration file in /etc/httpd/conf.d/hosts/new_host.conf - copy from an existing one to see the pattern
  4. Add DNS entry - pointing to the IP used in the above step

Troubleshooting

When going to http://www.osgeo.org/admin/ you may see various errors listed there. Most of them are usually just page not found errors for whatever reason. But sometimes the error shows that something is broke and needs fixing or refreshing. Here are a couple of them and ways to fix them.

Table 'search_dataset' is marked as crashed and should be repaired

  • Don't ask me how MySQL lets a table "crash", but the fix is easy, so easy you'll wonder why the database can't do it itself. Log into the database and run the commands like so:
sudo mysql -u root
\r drupal_osgeo
repair table search_dataset

Last cron run did not complete.

  • This may be related to the above error about tables going stale, but has appeared on its own as well. We have a cron job that regularly runs the cron.php page. This page updates the search indexes and does some other housekeeping. The fact that it has been failing, and that some table has had problems, is not surprising.
  • Some settings are here, including a re-indexing option and some cron settings: http://www.osgeo.org/admin/settings/search
  • cron failures are largely due to errors in some module or from memory limitations. Debugging this can be a real pain. Basically you have to know which modules you recently turned on, then turn it off, re-run cron.php (from command line on the server itself), then check the admin log again. Or increase memory and try again.
  • If Drupal user’s hosting doesn’t support Cron, you can try Drupal module https://drupal.org/project/EasyCron.
  • To fix it the last time, I increased php memory options from 16MB to 32MB and it seems to work fine now.

Tutorials

Add any links to documents or videos showing how to create/manage content.

  • Adding a new simple page: a video by Tyler for helping local chapters learn how to add a page.