Feature changed by: Ralf Lang (ralflangb1) Feature #311338, revision 2 Title: YaST debconf Module openSUSE Distribution: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Lars Vogdt (lrupp) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Currently, people installing RPM packages have no opportunity to configure the installed applications afterwards with openSUSE Tools - if there's no specialized YaST module. This is a disadvantage comparing to Debians debconf system, allowing packagers (and therefor endusers) asking the user certain configuration questions after installation. Goals * A first part will be a GUI reading currently availble debconf templates and displaying them as expected. Please have a look at the debconf specifications for this. * If this proof of concept works, there's a need for support of such templates in RPM. We need a general policy describing how RPM packagers can include such template files in their packages. This would give openSUSE the great benefit of helping Debian people to migrate to openSUSE - and (more important) allows packagers to allow users customizing their installation without writing special YaST modules. Scope Remember that debconf doesn't cover all configuration aspects of any application. It should be enough to ask some general informations so that an application is ready for usage afterwards. A fine granulary configuration should been done by hand - or the according YaST module. Related technologies Tools that interact : * libzypp * mod_ui (YaST) * rpm Typical use case In the end, a user should be able to install a package like MySQL - and configure main parts of his new application using the YaST debconf module. Also think about packages for applications using a database, such as web based applications like horde, moodle and so on - currently, the user has to create the needed database manually. The YaST debconf module could ask for the location of the database server, the database name, the username, ... - and use this informations to set everything up so a user can login to his application right afterwards. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: debconf is a software utility for performing system-wide configuration tasks on Unix-like operating systems. It is developed for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, and is closely integrated with Debian's package management system, dpkg. When packages are being installed, debconf asks the user questions which determine the contents of the system-wide configuration files associated with that package. After package installation, it is possible to go back and change the configuration of a package by using the dpkg-reconfigure program, or another program such as Synaptic. The design of debconf allows for front-ends for answering configuration questions to be added in a modular way, and there exist several, such as one for dialog, other for readline, one for editor, one for KDE, one for GNOME [1], a Python front-end API, etc. There are two differnent goals for openSUSE: * Add some kind of "debconf" support to RPM * Create a YaST Module as front-end + Discussion: + #1: Ralf Lang (ralflangb1) (2011-09-07 18:46:14) + While I chose another path for horde (and upstream too) I am still very + interested in something like this. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/311338