scy's questions

I have installed PostgreSQL 9.0 (postgresql) and PostGIS 1.5 (postgis) from Debian Backports on my freshly installed Squeeze (stable).

However, when trying to create a PostGIS-enabled database, I noticed that I’m missing the “enabler script” postgis.sql. According to the manual, it should be in [prefix]/share/contrib, but /usr/share/postgresql/9.0/contribdoesn’t exist until I install postgresql-contrib-9.0 as well, but the file isn’t included there as well.

Now apparently the file might come with the postgresql-x.x-postgis packages, however, there’s no such package for 9.0 yet (or I’m too stupid to find it).

So, Debian and PostGIS gods, what shall I do? Just get the .sql file from the PostGIS source? Install the postgresql-8.4-postgis package (which pulls PostgreSQL 8.4)? Something completely different?

(I need 8.3 or 9.0 because the OpenStreetMap installation guide I’m using says that 8.4 performs poorly with OSM, and I figured that instead of using 8.3 I might as well use the newer version. So, “you absolutely want to use 8.3 instead of 9.0” is a valid suggestion as well.)

I have to install Node.JS on a customer’s server which runs RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 (5.3, afaik). I’m an experienced Debian and Gentoo admin, but have not worked with RedHat systems for about 10 years.

As far as I can see, there’s no official Node.JS package; therefore I’d try building from source. That’s not a problem for me, however, I need to build it with OpenSSL support, which means I need OpenSSL development libraries installed (something like the libssl-dev package on Debian systems). Node.JS’s ./configure cannot find it, so I guess it’s not installed by default. For OpenSSL, I guess, a package should exist.

Now:

How do I install the OpenSSL dev package? Or do I have to build it from source, too? (I could, but I guess using a package is easier.) Please note that I don’t know what the preferred package manager on RHEL is (yum, I guess?) or how to use it. Telling me the exact commands would therefore be nice.

Or, is there a Node.JS package which I should install instead?

The server in question is managed by quite security-aware admins, so installing an RPM found in a forum or the like is not an option. (And no, they won’t install it for me, but yes, they are willing to give me root to do it.)