automatic apache alias configuration

[Martin Pitt <martin@piware.de>]

Hi!

I'm currently packaging fibusql (ITP #186503) and not sure how to
configure it.

Since I do not want to clutter the DOCUMENT_ROOT directory, I install
the php scripts under /usr/share/fibusql. Thus, a webserver alias has
to be created to make that work, e. g. a line like

    Alias /fibusql /usr/share/fibusql

is required in /etc/apache[-ssl]/httpd.conf.

AFAICS there are those options:

1. not configuring the alias automatically at all, but only write a
   note to README.Debian (and possibly a debconf note)

2. ask whether the alias should be installed and removed automatically
   in the maintainer scripts.

   2.1 in httpd.conf (as seems to be the convention, since all other
       *.conf recommend to only use httpd.conf)

   2.2 srm.conf (as e. g. gcdb does)

   2.3 My own fibusql.conf (included by httpd.conf, so the latter
       still has to be modified)

(2) would have the disadvantage that just setting the alias may not
work on all systems (I was pointed to virtual hosts and permissions)
and it fiddles with other people's conffiles.

(1) would thus be cleaner, but IMHO the purpose of configuration is to
make the package work out of the box.

I do not seem to be the only one having this problem, since there are
quite many packages that need to do that (e.g. php4, viewcvs, cvsweb,
gcdb). What would you recommend?

I'm no DD yet and thus are not quite firm with those habits yet. I
would appreciate your opinions and hints.

Thanks in advance!

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt 
home:  www.piware.de
eMail: martin@piware.de

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