[CentOS] if you install cgi programs from rpm, how to configure for actual use in /var/www/html ?

Wed Jan 5 16:42:48 UTC 2011
Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 at gmail.com>

In Centos 5.5, I've had this same experience over and over.  I have no
trouble installing CGI programs the old fashioned way (untar into
/var/www/html and configure), but don't like un-rpm managed files
floating about.  So I can install, for example, phpMyAdmin, from EPEL.

That phpMyAdmin RPM drops files into a bunch of locations, the php
files are under /usr/share/phpMysql

and then there are also:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf
/etc/phpMyAdmin
/etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php

and this:

/var/lib/phpMyAdmin
/var/lib/phpMyAdmin/config
/var/lib/phpMyAdmin/save
/var/lib/phpMyAdmin/upload

In order to make this actually work on the web server, I copy the
directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin into /var/www/html and then I edit the
/etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf.  Then it works.

Then a new version of the phpMyAdmin RPM is released on EPEL, it gets
installed, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to keep my thing
in /var/www/html working.

I had the exact same experience with the mediawiki RPM from EPEL.  It
installs its files into /var/www/

var/www/mediawiki116

and

/usr/share/mediawiki116

The web server required everything to b e under /var/www/html/, so I
copy files in there.  The mediawiki116 documentation does not mention
this problem, but I've googled long enough until I found this, which
agrees with me that it is necessary to copy the files over in order to
use the media wiki.

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-MediaWiki-on-Fedora

Unfortunately, now the upgrade path is obscured. When RPM updates its
files (scattered over the file system), what to do?

---
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas