Bug 702769
| Summary: | With GNU autoconf produced configure scripts are probably violating the FHS regarding "localstatedir" | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | smurffit <smurffit> |
| Component: | autoconf | Assignee: | Karsten Hopp <karsten> |
| Status: | CLOSED WONTFIX | QA Contact: | Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa> |
| Severity: | unspecified | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | unspecified | ||
| Version: | 14 | CC: | bugs.michael, karsten, smurffit |
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | All | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2012-08-16 13:43:46 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
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Description
smurffit
2011-05-06 23:51:13 UTC
* Autoconf is configurable. It defaults to expanding most of its installation directories based on ${prefix}. That way you can create local install trees for a program by simply changing just the --prefix arg.
* To adjust to the FHS, a config.site script can be set up by the Autoconf user. The bottom half of section 1.5.8 comments on that and on the FHS:
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#Site-Defaults
* When building packages with RPM, typically the %configure macro is used ("rpm --eval %configure"), which alters --localstatedir and --sharedstatedir.
(In reply to comment #1) Thank you for your comment. To be honest, I'm not very experienced with that material, however, I'll try to comment your reply. > * Autoconf is configurable. It defaults to expanding most of its installation > directories based on ${prefix}. That way you can create local install trees for > a program by simply changing just the --prefix arg. I understand, that Autoconf is meant to be flexible and that the --prefix arg is supposed to be a feature. However, as far as I can see, are all prefixed-directories correct - except the /var dir. Overwriting the --prefix wouldn't solve the problem, because the other values would then be wrong and overwriting the --localstatedir everytime isn't a real solution neither. Based on that situation my primary questions are: 1. why should I change the prefix, if it's correct except for one value / why is overwriting the localstedir required in most cases? 2. the main-purpose of autoconf is making things easier, so in my opinion should the _default_ values be as common as possible > * To adjust to the FHS, a config.site script can be set up by the Autoconf > user. The bottom half of section 1.5.8 comments on that and on the FHS: > http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#Site-Defaults Thanks for the link. I'm not sure if I got the concept correct, but why should I overwrite autoconf-paths, if finding platform-dependend paths is one of autoconfs tasks? That's the core-point of that ticket. IMHO should autoconf be FHS-compilant by default. Hard-coding paths or workarounding path-related problems are not the job of the developer. > * When building packages with RPM, typically the %configure macro is used ("rpm > --eval %configure"), which alters --localstatedir and --sharedstatedir. Yes, RPM and DEB handle the paths correct. However, if I'm going to provide a tarball I must either give the user a hint about the wrong path and the required args or have trust in his knowledge or start implementing workarounds (which, in my opinion includes writing scripts or other files to find a correct path or specify a default). Conclusion: In my opinion should the default be at least basically correct (which, I guess would mean a localstatedir w/o a prefix (afaik is /usr/local/var only common on *BSD and even they put their stuff to /var while keeping configs in /usr/local/etc)). regards This message is a notice that Fedora 14 is now at end of life. Fedora has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 14. It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At this time, all open bugs with a Fedora 'version' of '14' have been closed as WONTFIX. (Please note: Our normal process is to give advanced warning of this occurring, but we forgot to do that. A thousand apologies.) Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, feel free to reopen this bug and simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version. Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were unable to fix it before Fedora 14 reached end of life. If you would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version of Fedora, you are encouraged to click on "Clone This Bug" (top right of this page) and open it against that version of Fedora. Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete. The process we are following is described here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping |