FW: FW: Shibboleth - Default installation

[Peter Schober]

* Phanieshwar Nalluri <nalluri at bc.edu> [2020-04-09 15:18]:
> I tried RMP install available for CentOS 7 and installation was
> successful but I downloaded RPM in /opt/shibboleth and installed RPM
> in that directory

You shouldn't "download" anything manually. Add the YUM repo as per
the documentation, install via yum and be done with it.

> but still the packages were installed under /etc/shibboleth

The packages are not installed under /etc/shibboleth, some files are
(the configuration, as per the Linus FHS). Other files are in /usr
others are in var. That's why package management exists and the FHS
exists.

> I'll have to look for container options and building from scratch.

On the one hand you want to use RPM-packaged
perfectly-integraded-with-the-OS peckages but then you insist that the
software has to store all its files in an arbitrary location of your
chosing at the same time. That's not how it works, with basically none
of the software that takes care to integrate with the OS well ad
adhere to published standards.

So by all means don't use any of the integration provided out of the
box by the RPM packaging and build the software yourself only so that
you can have the files in a non-standard location -- at the price of
having to take care of any updates and security fixes yourself in
perpetuity, i.e., by subscribing to mailing lists, automating your
local build, automating the deployment to servers, etc.

Of course with Docker the files put into containers also wouldn't be
in /opt of your CentOS system, they'd be hidden away in
/var/lib/docker/ somewhere, equally *not* fulfilling your (IMHO
absurd) "requirements". And if someone arbitrarily declares that
method to be satisfying your requirements, well, so should be putting
a symlink to /etc/shibboleth into your /opt directory or adding a
bind mount.

Personally I find this all very silly.

-peter