RDBMS Backend for packages.debian.org
Mentor: FrankLichtenheld
Summary: Migrate http://packages.debian.org/ from the current BerkeleyDB backend to a RDBMS, preferably PostgreSQL
Required skills:
- Basic Knowledge about Database Design and SQL
- Perl
- Prior experience with Apache and mod_perl would be helpful, but is not required
Description: The current backend is reasonably fast, but very inflexible.
The current code of packages.d.o can be found at http://git.debian.org/?p=webwml/packages.git;a=summary See the README for some basic information and INSTALL for information how to set up a test instance.
My personal repository at http://source.djpig.de/git/?p=packages.git;a=summary has a branch sql-backend where I committed my old stab at the problem. Feel free to poke around there as well. Tackling this problem will not only require to find an elegant solution, but also a very fast one, since packages.d.o is a high-traffic website.
Part of the task is evaluation of the existing databases (projectb of ftp-master.debian.org and UDD), both for design inspiration and as possible data-source. On the other hand the same code also runs behind http://packages.ubuntu.com/, and also http://archive.debian.net/, so I would prefer to not integrate it too tightly into the Debian infrastructure if that would mean that this flexibility gets lost.