October 2008 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Two Koha intranets
by Karen Myers 24 Oct '08

24 Oct '08

Hi I am wondering if it possible to have two Koha Intranets running at the same time on different computers as we have two cataloguers needing to catalogue at the same time. Also, can anyone point me to any information regarding getting your Koha LMS available via the Internet? Or any companies that provide this kind of service? cheers Karen Myers _________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel(a)nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel

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"Till Reconciliation" Report
by Joe Atzberger 23 Oct '08

23 Oct '08

Besides the security hole I just patched, I think the "Till Reconciliation" report in 3.x has other serious deficiencies, mostly related to simplistic structure underlying fines. If it seems unfamiliar, it should be. I commented it out of the interface just before the 3.0 release when I started to realize the problems with it, but the report script itself was still there. Recently some of our clients found it and started trying to use it. So here's my argument that it should be removed outright. The branch of the fine payment transaction does not exist in the accountlines table. No provisions to record that information exist. Even if branchcode were recorded it would not be effective as a real P.O.S. reconciliation report, because it wouldn't differentiate between any of the various stations in the same branch. Here's the part I really don't like. In the retail world a "Till Reconciliation" report is used daily to balance out a cash drawer and total up the day's transactions before an evening deposit. This is the type of "evidence" used to fire someone when their register comes up short. The report as it stands, despite appearances, is totally useless for that purpose and should not be attributed any authority at all. Basically, Koha does not have 1-to-1 assurances for the physical location or uniqueness of the remote user, system or branch. Koha does not establish the identity of remote systems, only the remote user. In that sense it is a web application, and not a P.O.S. system. It doesn't care where on the Internet you are, as long as you remember your login. We can have multiple terminals on the same IP, mutliple browsers on the same system, the same system on multiple IPs, the same user on multiple sessions, etc. In short, we don't know what "till" any payment went to, and as it stands we don't even know what branch. IP level filtering can be used to restrict access to known networks, but that is not tracked by any internal logic. Adding the branch and operator to fine transactions, and outputting it is relatively modest refinement compared to making that data verifiable. None of the fines enhancement LibLime is currently discussing include establishing the remote system identity in a truly auditable way (like, say, client-side certificates). Please keep in mind I support the idea/workflow of this report, I just think that we cannot allow the current implementation to be mistaken for valid. Any complaints about removing it until fines is overhauled, comments or considerations? --Joe Atzberger, LibLime

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itiwm Jonny wants to chat
by itiwm Jonny 23 Oct '08

23 Oct '08

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Patron attributes tables
by Owen Leonard 23 Oct '08

23 Oct '08

I was looking at the new "Additional attributes and identifiers" feature and have some questions about the table structure. I was curious why "Patron attribute type code" is not editable. I see that in the borrower_attribute_types table there is no unique numeric id, just the "code": borrower_attribute_types +--------+--------------------------------------------+ | code | description | +--------+--------------------------------------------+ | pet | The patron's pets | | school | A student patron's educational institution | +--------+--------------------------------------------+ And in the borrower_attributes table, each line for that particular code has to repeat the value of "code:" borrower_attributes +----------------+--------+-----------------+----------+ | borrowernumber | code | attribute | password | +----------------+--------+-----------------+----------+ | 51 | school | Ohio University | NULL | | 52 | pet | Chappie | NULL | | 52 | pet | Ivy | NULL | | 52 | pet | Rascal | NULL | +----------------+--------+-----------------+----------+ I would think there should be an auto-incrementing numeric id in the borrower_attribute_types table for each code which would get entered into the borrower_attributes table. Then you could freely edit "code"'s value without having to worry about updating every line in borrower_attributes. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org

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Introduction
by Allen Reinmeyer 22 Oct '08

22 Oct '08

Hello All, Just wanted to quickly introduce myself, now that I'm got my first patch submitted to Koha (Bug #2030). You can find me either on gtalk with the above email or on IRC as areinmeyer. I look forward to working and conversing with everyone in the near future. -- Allen Reinmeyer LibLime p. 770-888-9743

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RFC 3.2 - general hold request changes
by Galen Charlton 22 Oct '08

22 Oct '08

Hi, I've already sent out a couple of RFCs about hold requests and friends, and will be sending out some more that relate to specific customer projects for LibLime, but I wanted to toss out a few ideas for general improvement. A large number of bugs have been turned up recently, most of which were postponed to 3.2, so I think the module is in need of some attention beyond the specific enhancements to be proposed. First, the reserves table needs at least one more column to handle item-level requests properly. Right now, reserves.itemnumber serves two purposes: (a) identifying the requested item if the hold is item-level and (b) identifying the item selected to fill a title-level request. This is a problem because it can be hard to distinguish between bib- and item-level requests, and impossible to do so once the request is filled and the item is waiting on the hold shelf. I propose to replace reserves.itemnumber with two columns: requested_itemnumber (NULL for bib-level requests, non-NULL otherwise) supplied_itemnumber (non-NULL once the request is filled) During a version upgrade, the value of reserves.itemnumber would be moved to requested_itemnumber if the priority > 0, and to supplied_itemnumber if the priority is 0. This is not a perfect heuristic, as a filled item-level request should set both columns, but I'm not sure we can do much better. Second, i think the reserveconstraints table needs to be removed. It appears to date to a time when a biblio could have more than one bilbioitem, but now that the relationship is one-to-one, it cannot serve its original purpose of limiting a request to only specific formats attached to a bib. Removing reserveconstraints would leave Koha supporting bib-level and item-level requests. If something in between bib-level and item-level is still needed, I suppose that it would have to be based on selecting which item types are suitable for filling a request on a given bib - for example, if the library attaches codex and audiobook items to the same bib and gives them different item types, reservecontraints (or its successor) might contain a list of item types. Third, since larger Koha libraries can have hold request queues a couple hundred patrons long or longer, I'm going to experiment with ways of managing the priority value so that it is possible to fill hold requests without having to touch every request in the queue, both to aid performance and to possibly avoid bugs where multiple requests for a given bib have the same priority. Fourth, I want to add an auto_increment reserve_id column to reserves to give us an opaque request ID to simplify FK relationships with tables such as the successor to reserveconstraints and additional tables that we may need as we extend the request system to handle recalls and other types of requests. Fifth, I want to do some work with C4::Reserves to cleanup the FIXMEs, improve the POD, and add functions to separate handling when items can be requested versus when they are available to fill hold requests. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton VP, Research & Development, LibLime galen.charlton(a)liblime.com p: 1-888-564-2457 x709 skype: gmcharlt

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Seperate Database Server
by C W Nel 22 Oct '08

22 Oct '08

Hi All Is it possible to point Koha to a not local database host? With other words is there a way to run mysql on a seperate server than the Koha server? Thanks for any suggestions

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Updating perl modules
by Chadwick, John, DCA 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

I am wondering how others who manage their own Koha installations deal with updating Perl modules. Do you do updates on a regular schedule? Are there gotchas associated with keeping things up to date? Thanks, John +----------------------------------------------------------------------- -----+ John Chadwick, Ed.D. Information Technology Manager New Mexico State Library 1209 Camino Carlos Rey Santa Fe, NM 87507 Phone: 505-476-9740 Cell: 505-629-8116 Fax: 505-476-9761 john.chadwick(a)state.nm.us http://www.nmstatelibrary.org Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System.

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Support request
by mikyas hailu 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

Dear All, Please help me to solve the below problems I am new for koha and I am running koha 2.9 on windows xp PC. I have the following problems... 1.I am able to get the members form but I can not save member information , is there anything I need to configure on the database? 2. I could not download MARC21 records from the internet ? Is there anything I need to configure on the proxy server OR is any website that would help me to sort out the problem Thanks

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Installing on disconnected box
by Krishnan Mani 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

Hello, i am trying to help someone who has no internet access to setup and run Koha on a fresh box. i break the install process into four major pre-requisites: Installing the OS, Apache, and MySQL, and lastly, getting the Perl modules While we managed the first three relatively easily, its the fourth one (Perl modules) that i need help with. One ("brute force"?) approach i thought i'd try is to just copy over the contents of the Perl paths that contain the modules from my own running install of Koha. (The modules are at /usr/lib/perl5 and /usr/local/lib/perl5). If the OS and everything else is pretty similar, there is some chance this will work, given that the modules were compiled for a similar architecture (an x86 PC)? i haven't tried this yet, but before i do, i am sure there are better ways to do this. For e.g., cpan still has the sources for all the modules i fetched at /root/.cpan/sources Perhaps, i can compile and install cpan on the new box, copy over the sources, and give CPAN a "local file url" (like file://...?) to go look for stuff? Or is it possible to (temporarily and relatively easily) create a CPAN mirror on a box on the local network? Otherwise there are perhaps just too many modules and dependencies required to satisfy them to try and do this one at a time. Also, i hear there's a way to get a "tarball" of modules for specific needs, has someone tried doing one for Koha? Or can i create one from what i already have? Hoping to hear some good useful advice from you all, as always. This one's for you, Prashant... Cricket on your mind? Visit the ultimate cricket website. Enter http://beta.cricket.yahoo.com

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