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

[Alexander Bokovoy]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2015, Rob Crittenden wrote:
>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.
I agree with Rob. Literally every single case when people report 'CA
install fails' ends up with people asking us instead of looking into
logs. There seems to general unwillingness to invest into understanding
of what is being done and why things might fail.
-- 
/ Alexander Bokovoy