[Wpkg-announce] [wpkg_web Announce] WPKG Web v1.1.0 / WPKG 0.9.11-test1 Released

[wpkg at linuxkidd.com]

Today my friends.. I am happy to announce that version 1.1.0 of WPKG Web 
has been released...
As well as version 0.9.11-test1 of WPKG.

I'm announcing both since Tomasz is out of town.

WPKG 0.9.11-test1
Moved all default settings to config.xml
Integrated ability to grab XML files from WPKG Web during execution. 
NO MORE XML EXPORTS REQUIRED!

WPKG Web 1.1.0
Added HTTP Auth user checking for WPKG.js XML pulls.
Changed XML to export "execute='always'" as default for packages with
  no checks, and no 'execute='once'" set.
Changed (X) Delete icon in packages_list.php to only appear when
  the package is marked obsolete, or is not in any profiles.
Fixed bug which resulted in MAC addresses which were all numeric being
  truncated.

There have been several requests for a way to have WPKG Web export the 
XML files directly to the file system.  There have been other requests 
for WPKG to be MySQL (or other DB) integrated.  We now have something 
that I believe to be superior to both of those situations.

The new release of WPKG now supports specifying the URL to your WPKG Web 
installation along with a username/password set and allows WPKG to pull 
the XML right out of the web interface.  NO MORE XML EXPORTING 
REQUIRED!  This change required Very little code change... So it was 
quickly implemented and released.

How to get this going:
1. Download and upgrade to WPKG v0.9.11-test1 and WPKG Web v1.1.0.
2. Set WPKG to use the web site for it's XML by either:
  a. Inside WPKG's config.xml, change the wpkg_base variable to point to 
your WPKG Web installation.
       O R
  b. On the command line, specify the Web URL with the /base flag.  For 
example:
     /base:http://wpkg.mydomain.com
     or
    /base:http://www.mydomain.com/wpkg_web

If you do not use any authentication to get to your wpkg_web 
installation... Then you're done!! ( but I highly recommend setting up 
user auth for wpkg_web.  People can change things that will royally mess 
with your computers otherwise ).

With user auth in Apache or IIS:
1.  Edit config.php from WPKG Web and change the '$wpkg_user' to be the 
username you want to have XML only permissions. (default is wpkg)
2.  Create the user so that the Auth works..
3.  Modify the URL in WPKG's config.xml or on the /base: flag to include 
the username and password like this:
    http://USER:PASS@wpkg.mydomains.com
    of
    http://USER:PASS@www.mydomain.com/wpkg_web

  Where of course, USER => Username specified in the WPKG Web config.php 
file and created in step 2, and PASS => Password used in step 2.

YOUR DONE!

Now.. the bad news.  Being that WPKG grabs XML directly from the web 
interface... All changes are INSTANTANEOUS.  Ok.. ya, that sounds like 
good news.. and for the most part it is..   The bad thing would be if 
you screwed up something or made the generated XML invalid... In which 
case any machine that reboots will fail to run wpkg properly...  If the 
XML is invalid, it just won't do anything.  If you changed something 
else then the damage may be much more significant.  BE CAREFUL!

There are 3 ways to test the XML validity of the WPKG Web output.

1.  You can still use the get_xml script to download and verify the XML.
2.  Just run a test sync on a client to make sure everything runs properly.
3.  Even easier... Click on the XML icon in the WPKG Web interface and 
have the resulting XML open in IE or Firefox.  Both browsers verify 
proper XML formatting and will complain if somethings wrong.  Other 
browsers may do the same, but I've not checked.

Thanks to Tomasz Chmielewski for accepting my patches to wpkg.js and 
allowing this to happen!

Questions / Comments / Rants / Raves...  All welcome on the respective 
softwares mailing lists.

Thanks,
Michael J. Kidd

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