Don't start from scratch on error

[tobiasly]

Let me just say that never in my 10 years of Linux experience have I ever tried to install software which deleted all of its own install files if there is an error. That is the most ridiculous copout I have ever seen.

Too bad if I have made modifications to any of the install scripts; they're now all gone. Too bad if an error occurs during installation; I have no way of figuring out what the error was. I am now on my third attempt at installing this application and if there's a problem it means I start all over again.

I sure hope that in the next version this program can figure out where an error occurred and pick up where it left off. If Apache compiles fine the first time there is no need to recompile it every time in case PHP dies. And deleting files from a user's computer without asking them is just plain wrong.

And as a hint to anyone who is getting as frustrated with this rudimentary install script as I am... rename your "install_ispconfig" directory before installing and at least you won't have all your files deleted.

[falko]

Originally Posted by tobiasly

Too bad if I have made modifications to any of the install scripts; they're now all gone.

Make a tar.gz of your changes:

tar -pczf your_ispconfig.tar.gz install_ispconfig/

Originally Posted by tobiasly

Too bad if an error occurs during installation; I have no way of figuring out what the error was.

That's not true. The error is displayed.

Originally Posted by tobiasly

I sure hope that in the next version this program can figure out where an error occurred and pick up where it left off. If Apache compiles fine the first time there is no need to recompile it every time in case PHP dies. And deleting files from a user's computer without asking them is just plain wrong.

The reason why you have to start over is that the installer modifies quite a lot files in the install_ispconfig directory. So if the installation fails you can't use the same install_ispconfig directory again because it simply won't work due to the changes the previous installation made. That's why the install_ispconfig directory is deleted if the installation failed.

Originally Posted by tobiasly

And as a hint to anyone who is getting as frustrated with this rudimentary install script as I am... rename your "install_ispconfig" directory before installing and at least you won't have all your files deleted.

If you rename it, the installation will most likely fail...

BTW, there's a reason why we wrote all those "Perfect Setup" tutorials on HowtoForge. If you follow them to the letter, you won't have any problems installing ISPConfig.

[tobiasly]

Originally Posted by falko

That's not true. The error is displayed.

The ISPConfig error is displayed, but I have no idea of what steps it took to get there so that I can troubleshoot and find the root problem.

Originally Posted by falko

The reason why you have to start over is that the installer modifies quite a lot files in the install_ispconfig directory. So if the installation fails you can't use the same install_ispconfig directory again because it simply won't work due to the changes the previous installation made. That's why the install_ispconfig directory is deleted if the installation failed.

Regardless of what reasons you have, even if they're good ones, it's never OK to delete a user's files without at least warning first that you're going to. The first time I ran that script, I had copied other files into that directory so I could use them for reference and made some notes about the install I was running. They were all wiped out and I had to start over.

Originally Posted by falko

If you rename it, the installation will most likely fail...

No, it worked fine actually... why would it fail?

Originally Posted by falko

BTW, there's a reason why we wrote all those "Perfect Setup" tutorials on HowtoForge. If you follow them to the letter, you won't have any problems installing ISPConfig.

What about people who are using an OS (such as CentOS in my case) that doesn't happen to have a "Perfect Setup" listing? Or someone using (such as me) who is renting a VPS that already had the OS installed? Or someone who for one reason or another wants to modify their OS in some way?

The Perfect Setup guides are great and have lots of good info in them, but not everyone can or will follow them. And I realize you probably have had lots of people screw up their installs by trying to rerun it and having stuff break.

But for someone who has a clue to what they're doing, it's very frustrating to sit and wait for Apache to compile half a dozen times while I try to get things running. And frankly, I want to see what the script is doing at each step of the way, because a hosting control panel such as this is really in control of the entire OS and I want to know what's going on.

So while I can appreciate why your script takes the safe approach and deletes everything to start over, it would be really nice if it warned the user first and ask if this is OK, and had an easy way to turn it off or even skip certain steps like the Apache compile (some sort of "expert mode") for people who want to try several different approaches before finally deciding how they want to proceed.