If I attempt to create a user that exists already by executing this command twice:

gmg adduser --username foo --password bar --email foo@bar.com

I get an error message at the second time: "Sorry, a user with that name already exists." but the exit code stays 0. This should be non-0, so it's easier to script this.

It may be worthwhile to check the exit codes of other gmg subcommands as well.

We specifically don't create a home directory for the 'mediagoblin' system account as part of the setup process, but npm wants to install to the mediagoblin user home dir:

checking for virtualenv... virtualenv
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating mediagoblin/_version.py
./devtools/update_extlib.sh
which: no bower in (/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin)
Bower not found, installing via npm!
npm ERR! Error: EACCES, mkdir '/home/mediagoblin'
npm ERR!  { [Error: EACCES, mkdir '/home/mediagoblin'] errno: 3, code: 'EACCES', path: '/home/mediagoblin' }
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! System Linux 3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "bower"
npm ERR! cwd /srv/mediagoblin.chicagolug.org/mediagoblin
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.33
npm ERR! npm -v 1.3.6
npm ERR! path /home/mediagoblin
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! errno 3
npm ERR! stack Error: EACCES, mkdir '/home/mediagoblin'
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /srv/mediagoblin.chicagolug.org/mediagoblin/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0
make: *** [extlib] Error 3

Is there an alternate install location for this part of the process (e.g., somewhere in /srv/mediagoblin.example.org/bin ) or should we create a mediagoblin home directory?

I'm setting this as a 0.8 milestone bug because I think we need to decide which approach to take & document things appropriately in the deployment docs.

We had a user in the IRC channel who had an issue with getting email verification setup. Based on the error they received¹ they assumed that MediaGoblin could route mail to remote hosts on its own². They were slightly confused by all this.

We should catch such errors and provide a more descriptive error that doesn't require the reading of Python tracebacks to understand. Something like "Couldn't contact mail server on <host>:<port>" would be far more helpful.

Feel free to contact me on IRC (moggers87) if you're thinking of tackling this ticket and are unfamiliar with MediaGoblin's internals.

¹: ​http://pastebin.ca/2965561 ²: it cannot