About time we saw a custombuild script for FreeBSD only boxes

P

pucky

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So that it can utilize the installation from the ports system instead of these mikey mouse patches (outdated mind you) that the existing custombuild script provides.

How about it? There are many people around here that would need it. Most of the build script being provided exclude support for Freebsd yet the files in the /scripts directory address FREEBSD TYPE OS's. Makes no sense. Either its supported fully or not supported at all.

Need more information? See my post http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20726
 
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I tend to agree with this, I have a custom script pending based upon the work by smtalk, but that takes time and that is something that I dont have enough at the moment :)

Cheers
remko
 
Awesome idea!

I would happily pay several hundred dollars for the ability to do portupgrades on BSD either from DA (custom BSD version) or via some funky add on script.
 
DirectAdmin is built first on CentOS. Afterwards it's ported.

I can't say whether DirectAdmin will ever be written with a completely different system for building on a per OS basis; we'll have to leave that up to them.

But I do want to point out that it's a major difference in how DirectAdmin currently builds; it's not just a trivial change.

Let's see what DirectAdmin staff has to say; they're the ones who will have to do the work.

Jeff
 
I have replied in the other thread mentioned but I expect its how it is as its a universal script made to be compatible with all OSs. custombuild does make partial use of the ports system for installing libxml.

curl, gd, mysql and other dependencies can be moved to ports instead without any real problems.
 
We dont have any plans to do a full custombuild rewrite for freebsd. Having one centralized build script saves hours of work when a software package is updated. We upload a file, change a number and that's it, for all OS's. Certain aspects such as proftpd and mysql could be setup with ports in theory, as they're basically fully stock.. exim is slightly customized to include perl.o, which isn't guranteed to exist in all packages (you can try it if you'd like). Custombuild is evolving, and includes these software items in it now (either binary or source), so upgrading for all OS's, no matter what package type will get easier over time.

John
 
Actually it is easy to setup DA with FreeBSD using ports installed applications. I've written a meta port which installs the most applications (Apache, MySQL, PHP+some extensions, Exim, Dovecot) and in the process of writing a script that does the last DA tasks (Installing DA, setting up configurations files for the applications, mysql password and stuff like that). And all done with only changing the directadmin.conf file, and not a single symlink.

As i'm not using mailling lists, i haven't looked at setting up majordomo yet, so i cant see how much work needed to make it running. The same goes for the spamfiltering options, but i will definitely do that in a short while ;).

As for DNS, i was going to look into using PowerDNS instead of named (personal choice, i dont like named). The nice thing is that PowerDNS supports zonefiles so i'm not going to alter anything in DA, the only thing needed to be done is a symlink for the startup scripts (or get the DA crew to support PowerDNS startup script).

I dont think it will require alot of time from the DA crew to make the setup script use FreeBSD ports instead of doing the compilation itself.
All the functions for configuring applications are working, the only thing needed to be changed is the file paths, but that can be done easily with variables. Then it's just to install the metaport(or install them manually, whatever you prefer), run the configuration script and DA is up and running.
 
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Sounds brilliant Niklas!

First I've ever heard of writing a "meta port" (although I'm kind of new to BSD).

DirectAdmin developer team could subcontract this guy for a while to help with the FreeBSD version :)

Charge us BSD'ers extra $$$'s to cover Niklas' time and effort (and yours) for the official DA BSD version that uses the Ports Collection.

I've got a spare server with FreeBSD on it and would like to use DA control panel for BSD , but the lack of official Ports support (and amount of troubleshooting questions in the FreeBSD sub-forum) has kept me from going ahead with it (for now).
 
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A meta port is just a ports that has dependencies and doesn't do anything itself. Just like the php-extensions package.
I dont know if i should integrate the whole directadmin installation inside the port, or if the install script should install the metaport and then does the rest itself. The last solution would properly be the best, as the install script then would work for all distributions (both with custombuild or with the OS package system), if variables was used for all file paths.

As an update i have gotten PowerDNS to work with no configuration except pointing it to the named.conf file (bind/named does also work, i just dont like it :p). So now it's just majordomo and spamfiltering left, and finish up the install script ;).
 
Niklas:
Any progress in this?


I would also love to see a freeBSD version of DA.
 
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