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Added by Attila Kinali almost 7 years ago
As the subject says, do not run “openproject configure”. Why? Because it will uninstall packages it doesn’t like without asking, leaving you with a broken system.
So, what happened: I installed openproject about half a year ago. The installation was everything but smooth (have you people ever tried to understand how a linux system and its package management works?), but considering that it was a web-application and their usual sorry state it was okish. The use of openproject was actually quite pleasant and using the debian packages offered a decent way for upgrades… so i hoped. Today, after i upgraded openproject to the newest version, it asked me to run “openproject configure” to finish the installer. Well, ok I thought, what ever it needs to finish the upgrade. Big mistake! Very big mistake! Seconds later, my mariadb database was gone and replaced with a half-assed mysql installation which failed because some dependencies were not met. How the hell do you think it’s ok to just run package installation/deinstallation from a command called “configure”? And even more so by overriding the defaults of apt-get to not ask before doing anything that might potentially lead to problems?
It’s a good thing that the debian packages of databases do not remove the database files even when removing the packages. Otherwise I would not just be seriously pissed. But now openproject is gone from my system and i will look for another project managment software. Thank you very much.
So, summary do not run “openproject configure” or even better do not install it at all.
Replies (4)
Hi Atilla,
thank you for your feedback. the packaged installation has to address the entire range of users, those proficient in how package management and administrating their server means, and those that have little experience with that.
For the latter type, the service we use for packaging comes with an option to install a local MySQL database and ensures that this is the active type. That step unfortunately uses
apt-get --force-yesto ensure the database we select is installed: https://github.com/pkgr/addon-mysql/blob/master/bin/preinstall#L25So, unfortunately you chose this option instead of selected Use an existing database which is what you should have chosen if you’re using a different local mysql or mariadb database. We agree however that choosing the auto-install option should come with an additional warning on what exactly it does to ensure your case does not happen. On every upgrade,
openproject configurethen assures that this configuration is still applied, and will perform any steps necessary to match your selection in the initial installation.OpenProject is open-source and so is the packager tool we use for distributing (in this case, the wizard addon responsible for installing or configuring MySQL can be found here: https://github.com/pkgr/addon-mysql/). Please help us make this part better. We have scheduled for 8.0. to work on the database configuration step and will include a warning then along with some other changes.
Best,
Oliver
Oliver,
I recently tried setting up openproject for the first time on a server that had an existing mysql database and existing products using that database. Following the instructions on the site where it asked me to run “openproject configure” I received no warning or choice to “Use an existing database”. And for some reason now I can’t get MariaDB re-installed. This is a terrible practice.
Okay, 2 hours later and I have everything back. So the problem is that despite some direction on the site on how to use an existing installation, there is not indication that not setting that variable will ERASE your existing install. That is not standard practice.
Second issue, after the package is installed is specifically tells you to run “openproject configure” without any indication that existing data or databases will be removed. How on earth am I supposed to pass it specific parameters for my setup to save my server from oblivion when I’m simply configuring a new package? That is unacceptable. You can blame the user all your want but that’s just poorly implemented.
Oh yes. Saw this warning late. Nearly screwed up my server. Thank god only the client core got uninstalled. But older versions got installed
Instead of saying New Database / Use an Existing Database you should word it as New MySQL Installation / Existing MySQL Installation.
Not using OpenProject anymore. Looking at clean up and uninstalling and installing the latest client libraries back again.