[Mailman-Users] How To Leverage Subversion To Customize Mailman

[Kucera, Rich]

How To Leverage Subversion To Customize Mailman

 

The key to this is bringing only the customized files in the production
distribution under subversion control. Not the entire distribution as the
Subversion community seems to recommend (this is not possible, it doesn't
work in my experience (mailman)), but only the modified files.

 

This procedure can be viewed in general as a controlled way to customize open
source systems,  and still be able to upgrade.

 

Required sub-procedure (issue, svn will not overwrite for checkout, by
design)

 

   1. checkout to temp

 

   2. tar cvf checkout dir

 

   3. tar xvf checkout over in-production distribution

 

 

Steps of new procedure (test as appropriate between each step):

 

   1. delete current trunk (if any bad attempts so far)

 

   2. import all of prod

 

   3. prune repo down to only mods, not entire installation

 

   4. tag mods current

 

   5. delete test install, put back original test install (bad attempt)

 

   6. check out mods to test

 

   7. move .svn directories out of templates/en (any runtime dirs) because
they confuse upgrade scripts

 

   8. upgrade in-place to mailman 2.1.8

 

   9. commit changes

 

  10. checkout trunk to PC (easier to work there)

 

  11. diff 2.1.7 mods with 2.1.8 files

 

  12. move 2.1.7 into 2.1.8

 

  13. commit new 2.1.8 mods

 

  14. update mods in test

 

  15. delete entire install in test.

 

  16. replace with original 2.1.7 install

 

  17. upgrade in-place to 2.1.8

 

  18. check out 2.1.8 mods to test

 

  19. backup

 

  20. upgrade in-place production to 2.1.8

 

  21. check out 2.1.8 mods to production

 

  22. backup 

 

 

 

-----------------------------------------

Rich Kucera

Senior Web Applications Developer

Howard Hughes Medical Institute 
4000 Jones Bridge Road 
Chevy Chase, MD 20815 
(301) 215-8714