[Koha] Notes on a RH7 install

[Ben Ostrowsky]

I'm testing a Koha install on a fresh 'workstation' installation of RedHat 
7, including Perl 5.6.0.  I think I'm a fairly naive user, although I have 
a little bit of experience with Perl (enough for quick-and-dirty scripts, 
and enough to load CPAN modules).  Here's what I'm finding so far:

1. INSTALL should say whether or not mod_perl is needed.  I'm guessing 'no' 
because INSTALL says "It was built to work with Apache, but there is no 
reason it shouldnt work with any other webserver".  (Has anyone tried 
running it on Win32?  Perl, Apache, and MySQL are all available on Win32...)

2. Under INSTALL quick installation instructions item 4, "Edit 
C4/Database.pm" should read "Edit scripts/C4/Database.pm".  Similarly, all 
references to files within INSTALL should be relative to the directory in 
which INSTALL resides.

2a. If at all possible, variables like this which need to be set by the 
installer should either be in a central koha.conf file or defined near the 
top of the file containing them.  The installer should ideally not have to 
slog through Database.pm to find C4Connect.

3. The parts of scripts/C4/Database.pm needing to be modified by the 
installer should be commented more clearly -- by which I mean: easy to spot 
visually and also explicit in saying exactly which lines need to be modified.

4. In INSTALL, "Next copy the C4 directory (in scripts/) to somewhere in ur 
perl path" confuses me.  I know how to find out the value of $PATH in a 
shell, but I don't know what my perl path is.  (In fact, I'm stuck 
here.  Help, please.)

5. In INSTALL, in the list of other required software: "AuthenDBI (if you 
want to use Database based authentication)" makes me wonder whether or not 
database-based authentication is the recommended/standard way to go.  It 
also leaves unresolved the issues of:

* authentication of who for what tasks? (i.e. tell me what it will affect),
* should I have authentication at all -- would it be any easier to install 
without it? is there any reason to avoid it?, and
* if I need to use authentication and don't want Database based 
authentication, what other options are there?

6. This is not strictly a Koha issue, but 'install DBD::mysql' asks a 
confusing question that might affect Koha: "Do you want to install the 
MysqlPerl emulation? You might keep your old Mysql module (to be 
distinguished from DBD::mysql!) if you are concerned about compatibility to 
existing applications! [n]"  This may confuse others, so it should probably 
be addressed in a more verbose INSTALL file.  I'm saying 'no' to this one 
for now, but tell me if I'm wrong.

7. In INSTALL, in the required-software section, "CDK (for the telnet 
interface), Which in turn depends on the C CDK libraries 
http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html": Call this a naive question, but would 
Net::Telnet work as well?  The less dependencies the better, IMO, ceteris 
paribus.  I'll find out the answer to the next question soon and I fear 
it's no, but will the CPAN shell respond to 'install CDK' by fetching and 
installing the C CDK libraries?

8. INSTALL should probably list a series of steps needed to install 
dependencies, in the order needed.  (C CDK before Perl CDK, MySQL before 
DBD::mysql (if you want to use a test db to test the module -- in fact, 
DBD::mysql won't install because I don't have a test database available for 
it), etc.)


That's about as far as I've been able to get.  If I sound obtuse, it's 
(probably) not intentional.  If someone would care to incorporate the 
answers to these questions into a new version of INSTALL, I'll be glad to 
test it by reinstalling RH7 from scratch.  Please, someone tell me I'm 
being helpful and not a pain in the neck. :)

Ben