Bug 1288083

Summary:	ncl-common creates symlinks in /usr/lib/ncarg
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora EPEL	Reporter:	George N. White III <George.White>
Component:	ncl	Assignee:	Orion Poplawski <orion>
Status:	CLOSED EOL	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	epel7	CC:	orion
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2024-07-09 15:35:40 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description George N. White III 2015-12-03 12:55:05 UTC

Description of problem:

ncl-common creates /usr/lib/ncarg and populates it with symlinks which are not required is environment variables are set properly

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

ncl.x86_64 6.3.0-1.el7
ncl-commmon 6.3.0-1.el7

How reproducible:

Completely

Steps to Reproduce:
1. install ncl.x86_64 and ncl-common
2. ls -l /usr/lib/ncarg


Actual results:

/usr/lib/ncarg is populated with symlinks to ../../share/ncarg

These symlinks are not needed because /etc/profile.d/ncarg.sh sets 
variables that refer to /usr/lib64/ncarg and /usr/share/ncarg.

Expected results:

Installation should create only directories and symlinks that are
needed.
  
Additional info:

Comment 1 Orion Poplawski 2015-12-04 23:25:08 UTC

Are they causing any particular problem?  My recollection is that some applications/scripts do not pay proper attention to the environment variables so it was necessary to produce the symlinks, so I'm hesitant to remove them unless they are causing problems.

Comment 2 George N. White III 2015-12-07 13:03:27 UTC

I agree that it would be nice to have ncl installed via RPM work without having to set the NCARG variables, but I fear that requires changes to the build.  I've learned to be careful about letting unnecessary files accumulate as they can cause difficulties, e.g., if a new version of ncl is installed from sources 
in a non-standard path and picks up some old config files because the default looks in /usr/lib/ncarg.

If the goal is to be able to run ncl scripts without setting NCARG_* environment variables (e.g., bypassing /etc/profile.d/ncl.sh) that doesn't work for my 64-bit system.  

With no NCARG_* variables set, ncl gives 
  
  NDV_COLORMAP_PATH environment varaible not set:
       defaulting to .:$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/colormaps
  warning:["Palette.c"1844]:NhlLoadColormapFiles: Invalid directory encountered in colormap path specification

and segfaults, so NCARG_ROOT must be set.  

If I set NCARG_ROOT=/usr, then ncl runs and can be used for simple arithmetic, but gives: 

  warning:WorkstationClassInitialize:Unable to access rgb color database - named colors unsupported

If I create the symlinks in /usr/lib64/ncarg I still get this message, so it appears that ncl defaults to /usr/lib/ncarg and requires the additional variables from /etc/profile.d/ncarg.sh that point to /usr/lib64/ncarg.

Comment 3 Troy Dawson 2024-07-09 15:35:40 UTC

EPEL 7 entered end-of-life (EOL) status on 2024-06-30.  EPEL 7 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.