Having been a LiveJournal user now for almost five years, and having enjoyed the options provided for LiveJournal posting, I decided to move my professional blog efforts to stefw.livejournal.com to continue from my efforts previously posted here at blogs.conary.com. I will still be using this software in house here at rPath to contribute to the rPath Documentation blog. :-)

And now to get the new journal aggregated into the Conary and Foresight planets...

I have managed to put the three applications (forum, gallery, and wiki) on a single appliance and have them work successfully with PHP5 from the LAMP appliance and MySQL from rPath Linux. I was able to use the native web interface for each application to configure each of them, which was a relief. To really fit an appliance model, though, the deployment, configuration, and maintenance needs to be more straightforward. I made some notes on my Fogawi appliance wiki page that outline my observations and what else I will need to do for the appliance before I am comfortable releasing it: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Appliance:Fogawi

I absolutely dread having to do the rAPA plugin work. This is not because I don't value the result, but because I'm still very new to Python, let alone some of the supporting features incorporated in rAPA. However, rAPA is such a powerful part of the appliance, it will be worth it to spend a few hours, hopefully this weekend, learning the existing code and to manipulate it successfully to create the custom Fogawi plugin. Perhaps I will also keep careful enough notes to use this as an example to contribute to the plugin documentation at wiki.rpath.com.

As I look forward to releasing this appliance, I need to find the best way to advertise it. The intended consumer is an individual wanting to deploy a web server with some combination of these three applications, either for personal use or for a group or small business that can make use of these resources. I will be using the appliance to replace the default Red Hat install that is currently serving as my virtual private server (VPS), and that VPS will aggregate all my current domains in a single server with some manual adjustments (OpenSSH is on the appliance for this option) to serve some of the files I have also had under these domains. Besides my personal use, though, I need to find the target audience; I have a feeling the audience is a scattered bunch that will be difficult to reach from one or two online resources. Since the solution is essentially free for download by anyone, there doesn't seem to be an appropriate target in the commercial realm, either. Perhaps I will encourage my rPath colleagues to help me with promoting it for a start.

My first software appliance is complete! After developing the Simple Machines Forum package for Conary, testing it repeatedly to ensure the new forum could be configured and installed using no more than SMF's native PHP tools, I wrapped it in with the Apache, PHP, and MySQL components needed to support it. It's now available for download at rBuilder Online.

Download the image type that matches your deployment environment.
--OR--
Launch an instance of the Amazon Machine Image using this AMI ID: ami-1e836677

Some of the advantages of using SMF as an appliance include:
* Providing a completely installed forum ready for its own simple configuration immediately after appliance deployment
* Providing a dedicated system for the forum while making as small a footprint as possible by the OS and supporting software
* Providing the option to deploy on dedicated hardware or as a virtual appliance on one of many popular hypervisors
* Isolating the single application from other applications (which helps ease the mind of those more concerned about security issues, such as with PHP)
* Sparing the administrator any need to open command line access to the system (administration tools are included in the form of the rPath Appliance Platform)

Check out the wiki page for instructions, information, and some of my reflections about the process in the developer notes section.

Sidenote: One of the perks of working at rPath is my easy access to some of the resources, mostly in the form of the people I work with. I'd like to thank Elliot for his help in setting me up for testing and identifying some methods I could use to overcome some of the sticking points.

I'm using Dive Into Python to make the necessary bridge from my old C++ understanding to this new world of programming in Python.

I didn't learn Python before with the understanding that a complete knowledge of the language was not necessary if I followed some simple steps during my appliance development tasks on my Conary-based system. However, developing rPath Appliance Platform plugins is currently much easier with some familiarity with the language beyond just following patterns and going through a trial-and-error kind of learning process. So, writing about developing plugins has motivated me to go all in and understand what I'm actually doing when I manipulate the code. The more I know, the more I feel I can say to those who know less, and perhaps the easier I can make it for those not as familiar with the language.

So far, I see that Python is a neat little language. I'm still not entirely comfortable letting go of the strict rules of C++, but I can now understand the draw of the language. I will likely continue using it for other purposes after I have learned what I need for this writing.

I'm excited to report that my friend Mike, who is a published author and an editor for my writing from a previous position, now has a new Foresight Linux 1.1 install on his old IBM ThinkPad T20. Mike has all Macs in his house currently, so this was his only PC option for Linux. I told him I saw no reason we couldn't get something installed on it, even if it ran slow and the user was forced to limit simultaneous activities.

He pulled the T20 out of his closet, dusted it off, and burned some Foresight install disks. I learned that he had purchased it as a refurbished machine back in 2003, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to learn it only had 192 MB of RAM and a Pentium III processor. I didn't realize this was going to limit our install options, though; after the disc failed to boot to the installer, I had Mike bring the T20 to me and we worked together to get it installed.

We determined that our best option, since the discs were continuing to fail, was a network install. I supervised a network install from a shared ISO image. That took about three hours, and the remaining configuration and test run at the end was successful.

We took advantage of the install time, though, as I offered a crash course on basic Linux structure (this was his first time using it), how it compared to Windows with which he was familiar, and the Gnome Desktop Environment. We spent a lot of time talking about the "software appliance" concept, too, and what rPath offered as technologies for building them. Mike picked up everything pretty quickly and was anxious to explore his installed system.

I look forward to helping Mike learn more!