This is a more general and noob question. I am developing a small application in Linux (Ubuntu, to be more precise) and at this point I have an executable, a shared library (.so), a configuration file (.conf) with some settings to be read by the application at the beginning, a data folder with images and other resources to be used during the application life-time (resources that can be also modified, deleted) and of course, I would need some file for logs and messages (right now I am using syslog).
So, my question is, where should each one of these be stored when the application is installed on a client's computer? What is the standard way of organizing all the application's files in Linux? On Windows everything would be found usually in the C:\Program Files\(App Folder) but it looks like on Linux things are more (or less) organized. Can you give me some advices on this matter?
Program data were historically stored in dot-prefixed folders in user's home directory. Modern Linux distributions tends to use ~/.config/program_name folder.
For all files that will not be modified after distibution follow Linux standard:
Ex: project dir: ABC
sub directories:
logs - keep log files
conf - keep configuration files here
bin - executable binaries here
traps - any trap mesg
then depend on what application we develop
Along with you can set level for starting your application from boot level if required.
Related
I'm probably just being very thick here, but it's not clear to me where I'm supposed to install 'new' user-specific programs on Windows 7 (and presumably Vista too, though I've not specifically looked at that scenario yet).
Under Windows XP (rightly or wrongly) we always installed our programs into folders under 'Program Files' and accepted that they'd be kind-of available to everyone. From what I can gather under Windows 7 I'm supposed to install my software under the user's AppData folder (possibly AppData\Local\MyApp). That makes a degree of sense, but the fact that this folder is 'hidden' by default means that we're going to have 'fun' talking our users through support stuff.
I want to install our software so that it's user specific (the Users bit in Windows 7 makes perfect sense) but I do want the user to be able to access it if required. Our program also includes a 'data' subdirectory which it needs to write into while it's running (embedded database), but as the program is intended to be single-user/standalone, the data folder being inside a user-specific folder isn't going to be a problem.
My problem is just that whole 'hidden folder' aspect of AppData. As much as I've trawled the MSDN, I can't work out where else I'm supposed to install user-specific programs. Taken one way it would seem to be something like AppData\Local\MyApp, and another way it would seem to be just as valid under the user's My Documents\MyApp equivalent.
Has anyone got a clear guide for where all this stuff goes? I found the MSDN docs confusing. :-)
Not really.
The directory that serves as a common
repository for application-specific
data for the current roaming user.
AppData is, surprisingly, for application data, not for installation (Click Once/Silverlight applications aside). You can, and should still install into Program Files, just don't expect to write into that folder.
You can install software into AppData if you want it to follow a user about in an Active Directory environment, which happens if you put it in AppData\Roaming (the SpecialFolder.ApplicationData location).
You can also install into AppData if you want the software to be available to just the user that installs it. This can be useful if, for example, you have multiple users on the same machine, who all want to run different versions of the software in complete isolation.
If you want settings to only apply on the local machine then you use AppData\Local, which is SpecialFolders.LocalApplicationData - this will make AD administrators very happy as the roaming profile size won't suddenly jump up 50Mb or whatever the size of your software is.
If you wanted to create settings which apply to all users then you're looking at SpecialFolders.CommonApplicationData
You should remember never to rely on the actual name of the directory - localisation issues mean this can change and the location does change with OS versions two. You should be using the special folder enumeration in your software, or the equivalent in your installer.
Could you not install into Program Files, but use AppData as it's supposed to be used, and store your database in there?
Windows 7 added the FOLDERID_UserProgramFiles known folder and by default this maps to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs. This is used by MSI when ALLUSERS=2 & MSIINSTALLPERUSER=1.
On Vista and earlier there is no canonical per-user application folder but just using %LOCALAPPDATA% is pretty common. Sadly MSI will just use %ProgramFiles% on these systems.
It's 2019, and I just installed Visual Studio Code (a Microsoft product) in the default folder of
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code
This is probably for getting around the requirement to have an administrator or UAC prompt authorise the installation
Windows 7 folder structure is deeply inspired on Unix structure:
/usr/ -> C:\Program Files\ -> binaries: executables and dynamically linked
/etc/ -> C:\ProgramData\ -> global settings
/home/ -> C:\Users\ -> a folder for each user
~/.* -> C:\Users\Hikari\AppData\Roaming\ -> settings for each user
Windows has more folder, like My Documents for files with content produced by user, AppData Local and Roaming (which Unix usually handles with NFS).
It's about time for us developers to start using these structures. We must separate at least binary files that don't need to be replicated, global and user settings.
When a setup is installing an app, this setup should expect to have permission to write on Program Files. Once the setup is finished, Program Files should be writable only for other setups aiming to update binaries to other versions.
Please install executable files to the %programfiles% folder in Windows - a simple MSI based install package can perform an active setup for any new user who logs onto the machine to create the user specific files and folders in their profiles %appdata% folder. You see this behaviour for Internet Explorer, Adobe reader, etc. - It's the little MSI installer window that pops up the first time you log onto a machine which has those applications installed. - Thanks - a system admin :)
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that user-specific program files is just asking for trouble and is a damn stupid thing to do.
A much more sensible approach is to install different versions of your program to:
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.1\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.2\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.3\Program.exe
\Program Files\Your Program\Program_v0.4\Program.exe
I would then place a bootstrapping launcher at:
\Program Files\Your Program\ProgramLauncher.exe
Then, the user application data folder will only contain data, including an INI/XML/Settings file that indicates the version of the program that this user is working with.
Such an approach satisfies the core tenant of keeping data and executing code separate, allows every user to run a specific version of the code, and offers a small amount of de-duplication by ensuring the same executable code is not copied multiple times across user folders.
Otherwise, go right ahead with installing programs to AppData and undoing the years it has taken us to achieve clean separation of code and data. I found this thread because I noticed that Chromium and DropBox are installing code to AppData. I'm going to uninstall those program, and change the permissions on my AppData folder to exclude execution to ensure I can easily spot other programs attempting the same BS.
I'm developing a cross-platform desktop application for Mac, Linux and Windows. The application will create a plain-text log file to help with debugging, amongst other things. What are people's recommendations for a sensible place to store the log on each of the platforms?
Here is my guess so far, based on web searches:
Mac: ~/Library/Logs/MY-APP-NAME/system.log
Linux: ~/.MY-APP-NAME/logs/system.log
Windows: %APPDATA%\MY-APP-NAME\logs\system.log
For Linux, the XDG Base Directory Specification is followed by some applications. Log files are not specifically called out as such. You can put them either into a subdirectory of the data directory ($XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share), where they will not be deleted automatically, or you could use a subdirectory of the cache directory ($XDG_CACHE or $HOME/.cache). In the latter case, the files could be automatically expired after some time.
I am writing a C# application (in Visual Studio on Windows) that will be run as a mono application on Unix (Raspbian aka Debian). I am a Unix noob, and though I have read (well, skimmed) the Linux Foundation Filesystem Hierarchy Standard I am still not completely clear on where I should put the files my application will need. I have:
The compiled C# application (app.exe). I thought I would put this in /usr/bin, except that the application is not run directly (it is invoked by "mono app.exe"), so maybe /usr/libexec is a better location?
Configuration files (there may be more than one) (app.1.conf, app.2.conf, etc.). If they are not user specific, I would think /etc/app (a directory, not a file) would be a good place for these. How about if they are user specific? /home/?
Log file (app.log). Seems that /var/log is the right place for this.
Thanks in advance for your input.
You should look at an already established Mono app for reference. For example let's take MonoDevelop:
The exe file goes to /usr/lib/{appnameinlowercase}/bin/ , but they place a launcher script in /usr/bin, named {appnameinlowercase}, for easy launch from the command line (this script just calls exec mono YourAppName.exe).
In .NET the config files need to be in the same directory as the executable file, so you could place them in /usr/lib/{appnameinlowercase}/bin, then later for convenience, put symlinks to them from /etc/{appnameinlowercase}/.
Correct, /var/log/{appnameinlowercase}/ should be fine.
I have created an .exe file for my application using inno script. Here I want to copy files from my setup folder to the AppData\Local\Temp directory. This is done using the below code.
Source: "WebcamApplet_1-0-0\*"; DestDir: "{localappdata}\Temp\WebcamApplet_1-0-0"
The problem I'm facing is that this code is only copying the files into the sysadmin ie C:\Users\Sysadmin\AppData\Local\Temp (Admin), I have to put it in C:\Users\Manesh\AppData\Local\Temp(User) for my application to work. How do I solve this problem.
Your application is badly designed if it expects files to be installed to the Temp folder. This folder is so named because the user or the system are free to delete all files contained therein at any time -- it is therefore suitable only for temporary use.
Additionally, there is no reasonable and reliable way for a per-machine installer (one running with PrivilegesRequired=admin, which is the default) to install files or settings to per-user folders, including the per-user temporary folder.
If you really really want to do this, you should set PrivilegesRequired=lowest to create a per-user installer -- but bear in mind that this will introduce other restrictions, such as limiting where your application can be installed to. Provided that you are running with lowest privileges, you can then use {%TEMP} to refer to the temporary path.
Is there a standard location on Linux (Ubuntu) to place external config files that a web application (Grails) uses?
UPDATE: Apparently, there is some confusion to my question. The way Grails handles config files is fine. I just want to know if there is a standard location on linux to place configuration files. Similar to how there is a standard for log files (/var/log). If it matters, I'm talking about a production system.
Linux configuration files typically reside in /etc. For example, apache configuration files live in /etc/httpd. Configuration file not associated with standard system packages often live in /usr/local/etc.
So I'd suggest /usr/local/etc/my-grails-app-name/. Beware that this means you can't run two different configurations of the same app on the same server.
I don't believe there is a standard location. You usually define the location for your external config files via the grails.config.locations property in config.groovy.
EDIT
After reading your comment, I suppose the standard locations would be:
Somewhere on the classpath
OR
In the .grails folder in your home directory.
As these are the defaults in config.groovy file.
grails.config.locations = [ "classpath:${appName}-config.properties",
"classpath:${appName}-config.groovy",
"file:${userHome}/.grails/${appName}-config.properties",
"file:${userHome}/.grails/${appName}-config.groovy"]
There's a plugin Standardized external configuration for your app which you might find useful if the grails.config.locations parameter is insufficient.