Whimsy hosts static content, repository checkouts/clones, CGI scripts, Rack applications, tools, and cron jobs.
Every committer on the Whimsy PMC can both deploy changes and new applications to https://whimsy.apache.org/.
Details by content type:
Static content Changes pushed to GitHub master will be automatically deployed every 30 minutes. Note that this includes the contents of scripts and applications too.
Repository checkouts/clones An copy of a number of repositories are updated every 10 minutes via a cron job. This is controlled by repository.yml. The whimsy vm is also subscribed to board@ and scans those emails for commit messages and will update the copy of foundation/board when commits happen.
CGI scripts any dependencies listed in a Gemfile will automatically be installed. A simple CGI:
https://github.com/apache/whimsy/blob/master/www/test.cgi https://whimsy.apache.org/test.cgi
Many CGI scripts will require user authentication. This is done by adding a single line to the deployment data identifying the location of the script:
Note that the LDAP module does not currently handle boolean conditions (example: members or officers). The way to handle this is to do authentication in two passes. The first pass will be done by the Apache web server, and verify that the user is a part of the most inclusive group (typically: committers). The CGI scripts that need to do more will need to perform additional checks, and output a “Status: 401 Unauthorized” as the first line of their output if access to this tool is not permitted for the user.
Rack applications run under Phusion Passenger under Apache httpd. Again, Gemfiles are used to specify dependencies. In addition to simply checking the application, one line per passenger application needs to be added to the deployment data:
A simple rack application (two empty directories, and a one line file):
https://github.com/apache/whimsy/tree/master/www/racktest https://whimsy.apache.org/racktest
Authentication requirements will also need to be two phase, like with CGI above; but more common conditions can be handled at the “Rack” level instead of at the application level making use of Rack middleware such as:
https://github.com/apache/whimsy/blob/master/lib/whimsy/asf/rack.rb#L57
Cron jobs are managed by puppet. See deployment for more information.