Request for Change

Why this?

Customers ask for features regularly. In the longer past some things were installed where they were needed. Then we changed to a policy wich aimed to keep all the servers set up the same way. Denial of requests happened more often. But the side effect was, that the same questions were investigated and decided multiple times, as we lost track of the requests. So we will protocol them here from now on.

With the information gathered we can now see

• what clients want
• popularity of a request
• why the clients need it
• which information was available at the time of the decision
• why the decision was taken like this
• if reconsidering is needed

Apache

PUT method

1. Link: Configuring your WWW server with the PUT method
2. Decision:
   • Result: will not be installed
   • By: hja
   • When: 07.2014
   • Reason: we have no security layer for PUT as we have for GET and POST, so it would be a major change
3. Workaround: FTP protocol offers the same methods. Programmers should use this protocol instead.

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
19.07.2014	dna	older request, source is unknown	WebDAV related

PHP

PCRE - outdated versions of Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

1. Link: [1]
2. Decision:
   • Result: Will be redecided if given workaround does not work
   • By: jre
   • When: 10.10.2014
   • Reason: PCRE updates need a PHP recompilation. With the setup of PHP 5.4 and 5.5 a mistake happend to use there oudated versions (7.2 as of 2007).
3. Workaround: Use PHP 5.3 (PCRE 8.32 2012) or PHP 5.6 (PCRE 8.34 2013)

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
14.07.2014	sjo	Omar De-Giuli	Requirement for TheBugGenie3 (Answer was: Use another groupware as TBG is not updated ~1 year and appears to be dead.)

SSH2

1. Link: ssh2
2. Decision:
   • Result: will not be installed
   • By: hja
   • When: 23.09.2014
   • Reason: security concerns (opening possible abusive ssh connections to other machines)
3. Workaround: phpseclib

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
23.09.2014	jre	Vincenzo Nicosia	own programming (opening sftp connection to retrieve files twice per day with public key)	workaround looks good!

PHP gmp (PHP Extension)

1. Link: gmp
2. Decision:
   • Result: not investigated properly
   • By: hja
   • When: 29.10.2014
   • Reason: Already comes with PHP 5.5 & 5.6, search for "GNU GMP support" in phpinfo()
3. Workaround:

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
28.10.2014	sjo	Arthur Oppliger	Is required for the installation of the password manager TeamPass

PHP APC (PHP Extension)

1. Link: APC
2. Decision:
   • Result: No
   • By: HJA
   • When: 20.11.2014
   • Reason: We already have opcache. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PHP_accelerators#Comparison_of_features
3. Workaround: Use php 5.6 who have opcache enabled

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
18.11.2014	sve	Adriano Sibilia	to activate cache

PHP Xcache (PHP Extension)

1. Link: Xcache
2. Decision:
   • Result: NO
   • By: HJA
   • When: 20.11.2014
   • Reason: We already have opcache. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PHP_accelerators#Comparison_of_features
3. Workaround: Use php 5.6 who have opcache enabled

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
18.11.2014	sve	Adriano Sibilia	to activate cache

Frameworks

node.js

1. Link: node.js
2. Decision:
   • Result: not possible
   • By: jre
   • When: 08.10.2014
   • Reason: needs ssh access to the web account
3. Workaround: -

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
08.10.2014	jre	Angie Garz (EN)	Needed for Ghost blogging platform

Phalcon

1. Link: PHP Framework
2. Decision:
   • Result: will not be installed
   • By: hja
   • When: 07.10.2014
   • Reason: The efforts to install are far to high for a single client (setup, compilation, etc.). It is of no use for other clients, as it needs an own language
3. Workaround:

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
01.10.2014	jre	Michael Krummenerl	Fastest PHP Framework ever with built-in code generator that enables fast webapp creation.

Software

Pagekit

1. Link: [2]
2. Decision:
   • Result: Will not run on our servers
   • By: jre
   • When: 22.10.2014
   • Reason: Pagekit makes use of Symfony Components which is Python based. Additionally the components themselves might not suit our security setup (chrooted invironment would be far better)
3. Workaround: Use another CMS

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
22.10.2014	sve	Pascal Tourneur	Pagekit is better than Wordpress and Joomla together!

Software

FFmpeg

1. Link: FFmpeg
2. Decision:
   • Result: will not be installed
   • By: twi
   • When: 04.11.14
   • Reason: Use to much Ressources
3. Workaround:

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
03.11.14	yha	Tobias Strub	Useful for Customers to convert Videos in the new HTML5 format

Software

Bigbluebutton

1. Link: Bigbluebutton
2. Decision:
   • Result:
   • By:
   • When:
   • Reason:
3. Workaround:

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
19.11.14	sve	Stephan Romer	He want to install a on-line learning for share stuffs like documents etc.

PHP-Module

pdftotext and xpdfrc

1. Link: provide a link
2. Decision:
   • Result: No
   • By: HJA
   • When: 21.11.2014
   • Reason: No need to install this package
3. Workaround: Use Ghostscript

Request Date	Staff	Customer Email	Motivation (why needed?)	Customer Feedback
11.11.2014	shu	Christian Friehs	"Index PDF-Files via JiFile"	NO, the customer can use Ghostscript instead of these two modules.

How it works

A new request

You have an incoming request that needs to be judged, copy both parts of the template source. Fill in the headline(s) and the link in the first part of the template. If the scope (i.e. "PHP") is already listet, skip it. Then fill a table row with date, reason and contact address of the client.

Now inform the one that should decide about this entry.

First decision

The decision taker will fill in the decision part of the entry and inform you that it's done.

Workaround

Find a workaround if possible and not given yet by the decision taker and leave it there.

Client information

Time to tell the client what the decision is and why it was taken like this. If you get feedback, add it to the table row of your client.

It is asked again

(So it must have been denied or postponed until now.)

Add an additional line to the table like before with your clients reasons to have it. Inform your client about what was decided in the past. And note his feedback as soon as it arrives.

Escalate it again

You may escalate the request again, if you feel that:

• your new reason has changed the importance of the request (i.e. postfinance requires it to continue my payment processing module!)
• there are more than 5 times the same reason given in a short period of time (ie. 1 request/month)
• the reasons of denial or postponing are not valid anymore

Entry Template

==Scope/Environment/Parent==
===Module Name===
# '''Link:''' [http://google.com provide a link]
# '''Decision:''' 
#* '''Result:''' 
#* '''By:''' 
#* '''When:''' 
#* '''Reason:'''
# '''Workaround:''' 

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Request Date
! Staff
! Customer Email
! Motivation (why needed?)
! Customer Feedback
|-
| 
| 
| [mailto:abc@def.xyz Customer Name]
| 
| 
|}