Server: landing page resource are not packaged correctly (tested in nightly debian packages)

[elpaso]

What is the bug or the crash?

Landing page resources are expected to be under

<prefix>/ogc/static/landingpage/

Where prefix is defined by server setting QGIS_SERVER_LANDING_PAGE_PROJECTS_DIRECTORIES which defaults to server setting QGIS_SERVER_API_RESOURCES_DIRECTORY which defaults to QgsApplication::pkgDataPath() ).absoluteFilePath( QStringLiteral( "resources/server/api" )

The last part of the path /ogc/static/landingpage/ is hardcoded.

After installing package qgis-server-landingpage 1:3.35.0+git20231126+ffb31addd7f+36jammy there is no /ogc/static/landingpage/ folder under /usr/share/qgis/resources/server/api/

Note that: to build the webapp along with QGIS server just turn the cmake flag WITH_SERVER_LANDINGPAGE_WEBAPP

Steps to reproduce the issue

install nightly server package

Versions

master

Supported QGIS version

• I'm running a supported QGIS version according to the roadmap.

New profile

• I tried with a new QGIS profile

Additional context

No response

[elpaso]

ping @jef-n

[jef-n]

Never used the landingpage. I see that liblandingpage.so and resources/server/src/landingpage/ is installed. But only the former is packaged. Is the .so usable w/o an app at all?

I guess the landingpage sources are installed to build a customized webapp after install on the target machine and WITH_SERVER_LANDINGPAGE_WEBAPP that would already build a default app at compile time.

Is the default app useful and should be packaged or does one need to configure and build the app after install anyway? The package qgis-server-landingpage should probably contain both and also depend on yarn(pkg) (which also depends on nodejs).

[elpaso]

Never used the landingpage. I see that liblandingpage.so and resources/server/src/landingpage/ is installed. But only the former is packaged. Is the .so usable w/o an app at all?

Short answer is no: without the JS/HTML part you only get the API but no web application, which defies the purpose of the landing page (AKA catalog): to be a ready to use QGIS webgis catalog.

I guess the landingpage sources are installed to build a customized webapp after install on the target machine and WITH_SERVER_LANDINGPAGE_WEBAPP that would already build a default app at compile time.

There is normally no need to build a custom app, it is possible to override the templates and the app by defining a custom folder for the HTML/JS assets with no need to rebuild anything from QGIS provided sources.

Is the default app useful and should be packaged or does one need to configure and build the app after install anyway?

The default app is 100% required and is the app that 99.99% of the users will use and need. It needs to be built and packaged.

The package qgis-server-landingpage should probably contain both and also depend on yarn(pkg) (which also depends on nodejs).

If it is not possible to ship pre-built JS files we need build them when the package is installed by providing yarn and all deps.

Note that it would be much better if we can ship pre-built JS assets.

[jef-n]

Why is this a regression? The packaging didn't change.

[jef-n]

There is normally no need to build a custom app, it is possible to override the templates and the app by defining a custom folder for the HTML/JS assets with no need to rebuild anything from QGIS provided sources.

Is the source, that is installed, needed to run the default app?

[elpaso]

Why is this a regression? The packaging didn't change.

I think it did at some point: originally the QGIS source tree contained the pre-built js code and the sources were hosted in a separate repo.

[elpaso]

There is normally no need to build a custom app, it is possible to override the templates and the app by defining a custom folder for the HTML/JS assets with no need to rebuild anything from QGIS provided sources.

Is the source, that is installed, needed to run the default app?

No.

[elpaso]

Why is this a regression? The packaging didn't change.

See history here: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/commits/master/resources/server/api/ogc/static

At some point the pre-build JS and CSS were removed.

[jef-n]

Is the source, that is installed, needed to run the default app?

No.

Then why is it installed?

Correct me if I'm wrong: landingpage so and the default app should only be built and installed if WITH_SERVER_LANDINGPAGE_WEBAPP is enabled as the two require each other. And the source should not be installed, because it's not needed at runtime.

[elpaso]

Is the source, that is installed, needed to run the default app?

No.

Then why is it installed?

No idea, maybe it is required by some exotic debian policy? IIRC (but IANAL) the root of the problem was that pre-built js files were not allowed by debian (binary code is though) ?

The package as it is now makes no sense: the landing page does not work out of the box and there is no easy way to build a working package.

[jef-n]

No idea, maybe it is required by some exotic debian policy? IIRC (but IANAL) the root of the problem was that pre-built js files were not allowed by debian (binary code is though) ?

with "installed" I mean what the cmake install target does - not what gets installed when you install the package.