Installation

Git configuration for installation

Git configuration for installation

by Sean Fitzpatrick -
Number of replies: 3

This summer we are planning to do a clean installation of WeBWorK, because our current server is getting pretty cluttered...

In the installation manual, I noticed that use of SSH is indicated for cloning the various GitHub repositories:
https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.16_on_Ubuntu#Downloading_the_WeBWorK_System_Software_and_Problem_Libraries


Over the last year, I noticed (presumably due to some changes with GitHub security policies) that I could no longer do a git pull on my server due to an authentication issue. Changing my git setup to use HTTPS instead of SSH fixed this problem for me.

So I'm wondering if perhaps the instructions should be edited to have users clone using HTTPS instead of SSH? It's no longer possible to push unless one is using SSH, but most users due not have push access to the WeBWorK repositories anyway.

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Git configuration for installation

by Danny Glin -
GitHub has disabled the git protocol (https://github.blog/2021-09-01-improving-git-protocol-security-github/), so any remote repository set up with a URL that starts with git:// won't work.

SSH is still supported using a properly crafted URL, but requires you to set up a key pair, so you are correct that HTTPS should be the recommended approach for installing WeBWorK going forward.

I have updated the instructions on the page you referenced. I'll see if I can track down any other locations on the wiki that still refer to git://.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: Git configuration for installation

by Sean Fitzpatrick -

Thanks Danny. I use GitHub enough for other projects that when they changed their protocols last year, it didn't give me too much trouble; I just changed the remote URLs on my server.

But I would imagine that for other users, this would be a major sticking point.

Out of curiosity, why do the instructions have us clone everything into the home/wwadmin/Downloads folder and then mv into /opt/webwork? Just a permissions thing?

(Probably the instructions have changed since I first installed 7 or 8 years ago. My /opt/webwork folder is owned by wwadmin, so there would be no issue cloning directly into that folder. But I see that this folder is supposed to be owned by www-data. Huh. At least things seem to be working.)

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Git configuration for installation

by Sean Fitzpatrick -

I found a few more typos in the installation manual in the section on installing Rserve:

- the command for installing an update contains a URL, and the wiki has inserted a symbol to indicate that it's an external link. Not sure if it's possible to suppress this, but we don't want someone copying that special character

- the instructions for configuring localOverrides.conf are out of date. There is now a section for using Rserve, so one should just find it and comment out the appropriate line

- there is one instance of 'quite' instead of 'quit'