README.Fedora

RUNNING RACKTABLES ON A FEDORA SYSTEM
=====================================

Most files in Fedora package of RackTables application reside in the
/usr/share/RackTables directory regardless of package version. It is
assumed that this directory is never directly used in httpd's "document
root" setting. Instead a symlink or a PHP "require" construct should be
used for the index.php (and ONLY index.php) file based on some other
directory that is the actual wwwroot. This greatly improves
security and allows for the two use cases described below.

1. Single RackTables instance per server. By default the application
expects its configuration file (secret.php) in /etc/RackTables directory,
which is a part of the RPM. In a fresh installation the files is missing,
no MySQL database is setup and there is no symlink.

Setting up the symlink is simple: one needs to decide on the URL of the
RackTables system and map it to filesystem path. For example, the commands
below are likely to enable access through "http://localhost/racktables/":

# mkdir /var/www/html/racktables
# ln -s /usr/share/RackTables/wwwroot/index.php /var/www/html/racktables

After that opening the URL in a browser will bring up RackTables installer,
which will fill in /etc/RackTables/secret.php file and the contents of the
MySQL database. After that the setup is complete.


2. Multiple RackTables instances per server. The application is designed
to be able to serve many independent MySQL databases with the same
codebase, but different configuration files. This requires a separate
config directory per each instance. Each of the directories will feature
an own secret.php file configured for its own MySQL database.

For example, 3 virtual hosts should provide an independent RackTables
application each. It is assumed that httpd is already configured for the
virtual hosts using respective directories:

/var/www/vhosts/racktables.example1.com
/var/www/vhosts/racktables.example2.com
/var/www/vhosts/racktables.example3.com

The configuration directories could be:

# mkdir /etc/RackTables/example[123]

The "wwwroot" directories will require a short PHP wrapper file each. The
wrappers will differ only in the value of $racktables_confdir setting:

# cat > /var/www/vhosts/racktables.example1.com/index.php <<EOF
<?php

$racktables_confdir = '/etc/RackTables/example1';
require '/usr/share/RackTables/wwwroot/index.php';

EOF

Once the wrapper files are installed, setup of each instance must be
completed independently through the HTTP installer. Once this is done,
every instance can be independently maintained, backed up and even deleted.