[Freeipa-devel] user-friendly 'IPA internal error' message

[Rob Crittenden]

Jan Cholasta wrote:
> Dne 22.4.2015 v 09:05 Petr Spacek napsal(a):
>> Hello,
>>
>> looking at freeipa-users list, following kind of conversation is quite
>> common:
>>
>> user: 'IPA reports an internal error, what should I do?'
>> dev: 'see HTTPd error log on the IPA server'
>> user: 'what server?'
>> dev: 'enable debugging on client and see which server was contacted'
>>
>>
>> Can we make InternalError more useful and eliminate this kind of
>> ping-pong?
>>
>> Looking at sources:
>> $ git grep 'class .*InternalError'
>> ipalib/errors.py:class InternalError(PublicError):
>> ipalib/errors.py:class ServerInternalError(PublicError):
>>
>> $ git grep ServerInternalError
>> ipalib/errors.py:class ServerInternalError(PublicError):
>> ipalib/errors.py:    >>> raise
>> ServerInternalError(server='https://localhost')
>> ipalib/errors.py:    ServerInternalError: an internal error has
>> occurred on
>> server at 'https://localhost'
>>
>> Apparently somebody was thinking about it in the past but
>> ServerInternalError
>> is not used anywhere.
>>
>> How hard would it be to translate InternalError on client side to
>> ServerInternalError with appropriate server name?
>>
>> Can we extend InternalError with text like this?
>> 'See httpd error log on server %s for more details.'
>>
>> Does it make sense? Should I open a ticket about this?
>>
> 
> It's a good idea.

I don't know. How many people ask about CA install failures without
looking into /var/log/*-install.log even though it states within just a
few lines of output this is where all the logging goes?

The terseness was done on purpose.

> On a related note, I would also like the server to send tracebacks to
> the client if debugging is enabled on the server.

Call me conservative but this was a conscious choice originally as well.
The traceback is in the logs. The admin has the logs.

rob