Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 07:09:41PM +0100, Marc L. de Bruin wrote: On my system, I have hde1 (mounted as /), and md0 (hde2+hdg1, mounted as /raid1). The home-dirs are on /raid1/home and I have a symlink /home - /raid1/home (this probably is a bad thing, I know). No, this isn't necessarily bad. However, why don't you specify the location of your home directories for specific accounts in your /etc/passwd, and specify your default home directory in the user management utilities? If you use /raid1/home as your home directory, you won't need to rely upon symbolic links and your applications will have one less system call to make for each home directory file access. Alternatively, look into Linux LVM (http://www.sistina.com/lvm). It's current release is quite up to date in the 2.4.16+ kernels, and I believe there's a current package in Debian for lvm tools. You can logically manage your raid1 partition into multiple, growable/shrinkable logical paritions/filesystems. Also, you could use the mount --bind option to use 2.4.x VFS. bash# mount --bind /raid1/home /home So, the root-user might want the files to be physically installed on /raid1, e.g. /raid1/mydata, so that a user blah (/raid1/home/blah) can make a hardlink from /raid1/home/blah/afile to /raid1/mydata/afile. This sounds like a broken software package if it depends upon hardlinks. Hardlinks should be used with caution and only under specific circumstances. A good example is linking a file under multiple directories on the same filesystem when the directories are used as a form of data organization. (For example, the MH Rand email format.) Additionally, user home directories should not be touched by a Debian installation package. When the user uses this application, why does it not search a predefined path for files? Is there no $APPSHARE variable or configuration option for a user-based RC file (~/.apprc)? Is there no default RC file for the application in /etc/package/config? Could you provide the user with this functionality? Could upstream? -- Chad Walstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] | a.k.a. ^chewie http://www.wookimus.net/| s.k.a. gunnarr Get my public key, ICQ#, etc. Send email w/the Subject: get help
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 07:09:41PM +0100, Marc L. de Bruin wrote: Therefore it is up to the root-user (and his filesystem) where the files should end up after installation. Is this possible? Thanks again, if this is the case, then i would strongly recomend distributing it as a tarball, and allowing the admin to extract wherever it is required. the drawback is that after an upgrade, the admin would have to manually extract the tarball. now, if you debconf from the admin where the tarbal should be extracted to, you can query that, and extract in post-inst with no further interaction. so, i guess the answer is yes: distribute the data as a taball, and query the admin as to where to extract it to. you may even want to rm the tarbal after extraction. -john
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
John H. Robinson, IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 07:09:41PM +0100, Marc L. de Bruin wrote: Therefore it is up to the root-user (and his filesystem) where the files should end up after installation. Is this possible? Thanks again, if this is the case, then i would strongly recomend distributing it as a tarball, and allowing the admin to extract wherever it is required. the drawback is that after an upgrade, the admin would have to manually extract the tarball. now, if you debconf from the admin where the tarbal should be extracted to, you can query that, and extract in post-inst with no further interaction. so, i guess the answer is yes: distribute the data as a taball, and query the admin as to where to extract it to. you may even want to rm the tarbal after extraction. Why not use one directory in a standard place, like /lib/share/package/. If the admin doesn't like the data there he can link that dir to another place or mount a partition there. The problem with having it in a random place is finding it again, especially when the previous admin runs away to a better paid job and you are left with the remains. MfG Goswin
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 07:09:41PM +0100, Marc L. de Bruin wrote: So, the root-user might want the files to be physically installed on /raid1, e.g. /raid1/mydata, so that a user blah (/raid1/home/blah) can make a hardlink from /raid1/home/blah/afile to /raid1/mydata/afile. if the local sysadmin wants this, then they can move-and-symlink the directories to wherever they want. e.g. say your package uses /var/foo, but the sysadmin wants that data to be in /raid1/home/foo: mv /var/foo /raid1/home/ # alternatively use cp -af or tar # followed by rm -rf ln -s /raid1/home/foo /var/ this doesn't require any weird or special-case handling in the package. it's a fairly normal systems administration task. for example, it's not at all uncommon to move-and-symlink /usr/doc and /usr/share/doc to another partition when the /usr partition is too small. craig -- craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fabricati Diem, PVNC. -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
On Mon, 31 Dec 2001 02:23:55 +0100 Marc == Marc L de Bruin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Marc Marc So, to be more precise: debconf asks the user for that location, and Marc puts it in the debconf-database at myapp/thelocation. Now, when Marc installing mydata.deb, it should read the myapp/thelocation variable Marc and install the files from within mydata.deb at that specific location. Marc Marc The main question is: is it possible and if so, how to do it? May be you should use symbolic links? I.e. install yourdata to fixed directory, /usr/share/yourdata/, probably, and then create symlinks from there using debconf. -- Alexander Kotelnikov Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
David Z Maze wrote: Marc L de Bruin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: MLdB What I am trying to build are a couple of packages (let's call one of MLdB these mydata.deb) containing just ordinary files, related to a MLdB specific application. All these packages Depend on a generic MLdB configuration package. This configuration package determines the final MLdB location of these ordinary files by asking the user via MLdB debconf. Why do these files not have a specified location? Because their location depends on the lay-out of the filesystem of a specific system. It is getting more complicated now, but one of the requirements is that the root-user should at least have the choice to put these files on the same filesystem as the 'home' filesystem, because in that case, users can make hardlinks to these files from their own home directories. This is an important feature for the usage of the files. On my system, I have hde1 (mounted as /), and md0 (hde2+hdg1, mounted as /raid1). The home-dirs are on /raid1/home and I have a symlink /home - /raid1/home (this probably is a bad thing, I know). So, the root-user might want the files to be physically installed on /raid1, e.g. /raid1/mydata, so that a user blah (/raid1/home/blah) can make a hardlink from /raid1/home/blah/afile to /raid1/mydata/afile. Therefore it is up to the root-user (and his filesystem) where the files should end up after installation. Is this possible? Thanks again, Marc.
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
Marc L de Bruin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: MLdB What I am trying to build are a couple of packages (let's call one of MLdB these mydata.deb) containing just ordinary files, related to a MLdB specific application. All these packages Depend on a generic MLdB configuration package. This configuration package determines the final MLdB location of these ordinary files by asking the user via MLdB debconf. Why do these files not have a specified location? The two cases I can think of are (a) you're installing something that's system-wide, in which case you can just pick a location as the package maintainer, or (b) you're installing something that potentially multiple users would want to use. In the case of (a), I'd just unpack under /var/lib/genericpackage, and then use a symlink or Apache configuration or whatever to tell whatever it is that uses the files where they actually are. For something that multiple users could potentially want to use, really the best thing to do is provide a tarball in the package, and let the end-user be responsible for unpacking it where they feel is appropriate; this is the approach the various kernel module packages use. -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal. -- Abra Mitchell
Re: How to put files at a location determined at install-time.
On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 11:03:15PM -0500, David Z Maze wrote: For something that multiple users could potentially want to use, really the best thing to do is provide a tarball in the package, and let the end-user be responsible for unpacking it where they feel is appropriate; this is the approach the various kernel module packages use. that _some_ of the various kernel module packages use. -john
