Clean DA install, some weird things I do not understand

[redesb]

I recently performed a clean DA install on a new server to change an old machine and I found some interesting things that have perplexed me, if anyone can explain it, I'd appreciate it.

OS installed version: 'CentOS 6.5 Final' (32bits)
DA installed version: '1.46.3'
Custombuild version: '2.0'

As the installation is made

CentOS 6.5 minimum installation made ​​with the help of a 'kickstart' script (written by me) that replaces my data center installed by default.

Partitions:

Filesystem           Mounted on  Type   Size   Options
/dev/mapper/vg-root  /           ext4    10G   defaults
/dev/sda1            /boot       ext4   100M   defaults
/dev/mapper/vg-home  /home       ext4   100G   defaults,nosuid,usrquota,grpquota
/dev/mapper/vg-tmp   /tmp        ext4     2G   defaults,noexec,nosuid
/dev/mapper/vg-usr   /usr        ext4    10G   defaults
/dev/mapper/vg-var   /var        ext4    20G   defaults
/dev/sda2            swap        swap     2G   defaults

The rest of disk space is reserved for future expansion (LVM).

Kickstart disable 'selinux' and 'firewall' on install, options '--nobase' and '--exclude-docs' in package section, exclude from '@core' all wireless firmware and some packages not needed on a web server, disable IPv6 including '--disable-ipv6=1' on the kernel stanza of 'grub.conf', deleted '/var/tmp' and 'usr/tmp' and recreate it as links to '/tmp', modified 'tmpfs' to 'noexec,nosuid' and some more adjusts to hardening a bit the installation...

And after test for 'pre-install commands', I download using 'wget' the 'setup.sh' script and execute it.

And now the DirectAdmin related questions

1.	Why is added 'usrquota,groupquota' to the '/' (root) partition in '/etc/fstab' if there is a operational '/home' partition ? When DA has complained that quotas did not exist I have had to manually fix the problem but I could not disable quotas on '/' partition.
2.	Why is installed 'xinetd' if it is for nothing that I can see? Do not run any services not activated any services that controls by default ?
3.	Why is installed 'proftpd' if 'CustomBuild' by default install 'Pure-ftpd' ?
4.	Why 'named' (bind) is disabled as a service and why in the '/etc/init.d' directory there are two related 'named' files. ('named' and 'named-back') ?
5.	Why is it necessary to create a 'startips' service when it is only used during the restart of the machine.? Perhaps it would be better to add an entry in cron using '@reboot' option.
6.	Why the installation script does not use "./build create_options' from 'CustomBuild' to allow us to select the options you wish to enable or disable before launching the default installation ?
7.	Why is it necessary to install "ncftp" if there are many packages in the distro itself that can perform the same function?
8.	Is there any way to uninstall 'mailman' if not used?

The following questions are just curious

9.	Why has so little changed installation script over the years (more than I like to remember) since I bought the license?
10.	Why the installation is still so poorly documented? To make a minimally successful installation remains necessary read many forum threads, the little explanatory instructions on the web and many pages of the knowledge base site.
11.	Why has not been modernized a little the documentation of 'site-helper' website, at least to change the images to the ones of 'Enhaced' skin, which is selected by default?

Thanks in advance for all that read this post and can answer any of the questions.

Ramón

 

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

1) Back when we used uw-imap, email was stored under /var/spool, so quotas on / was usually required.
It shouldn't do much harm to have it on /.. but can be disabled if you want, should have have /home setup (you may get a very small disk I/O reduction)

2) For xinetd, looking at the install.sh, it should only be installed if customapache was selected, instead of custombuild (for uw-imap)

3) The way we install pure-ftp relies on parts that are installed from the proftpd rpm, such as the ftp users, and the /etc/proftpd.passwd.
In theory the rpm code could be duplicated into CustomBuild 2.0 to null the need for the proftpd install, but there wouldn't be much urgency for that.

4) Has to do with DA's process scanning. The boot script & binary name must all match. Related to the services.status file.

5) The @reboot option would be another way of doing it.

6) It already does call create_options if selected, however when the setup.sh calls it, it's no longer considered "default", since you'd then be customizing the settings.

7) I'm always open to new ftp client programs. Which ones are you referring to?

8) I'm not sure, mailman is not yet part of our setup.

9) If you're referring to the setup.sh, much of the install options have migrated to CustomBuild. It has changed immensely over the years, eg:
http://forum.directadmin.com/showthread.php?t=44743

10) We'd be happy to improve it. Can you clarify where you ran into issues?

This is the guide:
http://www.directadmin.com/installguide.html

When I install DA for people, I just run the pre-install commands, then run the setup.sh with all of the default options.
I currently select option 1 (CB2 + php 5 + mod_ruid2)

11) We'd actually already did it once, contracted out, but we didn't find it to our liking (functional, but wasn't "friendly"). I will admit it needs a bit of polish, but still does contain the info.

John