Working Locally

[j88per]

I ran into an interesting situation earlier today that I thought might help a few others.  I wouldn't call it a bug directly, but a serious inconvenience definitely.  My dsl line was down for a few hours so I thought I might work on a new cms/ms website I've wanted to build.  Created a directory, unpacked 1.6.5 full into the folder, touched config.php and chowned the folder to the web user.  All hoping that I could have a clean cms/ms install ready to begin developing a new website. 

How wrong that assumption was is sort of scary. 

It appears that the install and admin tools are fervently trying to 'call home' to mama.  There is a testRemoteFile function that tries to connect to cmsms.org, I have been able to track seems to be whats used to validate your version and maybe a few other things?  However it also failed to time out and proceed.  Now my patience might have been less than normal, but I'm working on a Gig-E network between 2 computers less than 2 feet apart.  OR - Local host - the system also just hung up.  (ie waited indefinitely for a response). 

I understand both sides of the Admin/Developer issue(s) regarding upgrading and patches nor do I wish to argue that as both sides are valid - developers want the latest and greatest code installed and admins need to protect the data, both are right.

However, requiring the system be connected to the Internet to perform and install or log into admin seems a bit, hmmm, strong?  I had severe difficulty installing the system and when it did finally get installed, I could not log into admin, again the same testRemoteFile function stuck on an infinite wait trying to call home.  (I realize that an fsockopen settimeout is assigned, perhaps it isn't being used? or who knows what?) The call is in the admin header.php file and the function is in libs/test.functions.php.

I can see many reasons why I wouldn't be connected to the Internet and need these functions disabled or disable-able.  My situation is a good example, all I wanted to do was install a clean copy of cms/ms and begin doing some development work, I didn't need the Internet.  Another situation might be on a secure Intranet, where the system may be required to be isolated.  Perhaps my local machine to demo work to potential clients without an internet connection.

I understand that the testRemoteFile function is there to make updates available, however it seems to have some issues.  Having the option to disable this entirely during installation would be really nice.  a 2nd place choice would be in config.php.  Its a bit of an assumption that the Internet will always be there. 

This isn't an issue to be solved or worked on, maybe an enhancement request, just understand that if your network is down, CMS/MS will hang.  The front-end appears to be unaffected, just the admin side and installation. 

My servers are all openSuse 11.x running Apache 2.x.  I do not patch everything the moment a patch is released, I feel that one can be a bit hasty, but then I have 8 years in QA. 

[replytomk3]

Not to distract from this serious issue, but a lot of data transfer occurs on the modern always-connected computers. Many, many programs are free to send or receive data. Someone should study exactly what and how much data is transferred.