Problems Compiling CFEngine With Static Libraries

Here's a little weekend trick for you :)

I ran into this while compiling the latest version of cfengine. If you've ever built it, you know that two of its prerequisites are having access to includes and library files from openssl and Berkely db during configure and compile time. We visited the one program with a heavy take on building the db package in a previous post.

So, with the assumption that you've already installed Berkeley db and openssl and are now ready to configure cfengine, the first hurdle is easy enough to get around. If your libraries and includes are in standard places (like /usr/lib and /usr/include) it isn't even a hurdle at all. However, if you've built your Berkeley db and openssl software into special directories, you'll need to pass at least one of these two options to configure:

host # ./configure --with-berkeleydb=/some/dir/db --with-openssl=/some/dir/openssl

That part's simple to figure out, because

host # ./configure --help

will tell you what flags you need to pass after you get the error during configuration. Of course, reading the INSTALL and/or README file first would help with that, too ;)

The second hurdle is a little less obvious, and may not happen to everyone. It has to do with how you compiled your Berkeley db and openssl source. If you compiled them to have shared libraries, you won't run into this issue. However, if you compiled them with static libraries, the cfengine "make" process will balk when it gets to the point that it call those libraries. You would see an error similar to:

Undefined error dlopen -- undefined symbol...blah, blah, blah

This is because it won't, or can't, deal with the static libraries you've compiled for db and openssl.

The good news is that you can get around this fairly easily by setting the following two variables in your shell and just restarting the "make."

host # BERKELEY_DB_LIB="/some/dir/db/lib/libdb-4.5.a -lrt"
host # OPENSSL_LIB_LIB="/some/dir/openssl/lib/libcrypto.a -ldl"

and then running make with the -e flag, which will give your environment variables (set above) precedence over variables set in the Makefile.

It's important to note that some systems (generally older ones, like Solaris 2.6) don't have the -lrt (librt) library. In these cases, just use -ldl for both the db and openssl evironment variables.

After that, it's all icing :)

Cheers,

, Mike

linux unix internet technology

CC FLAG UPDATE - Building Solaris Packages Quickly - An Old Post Revisited

Hey There,

Updated Some More - Thank you for your emails :) I've updated this once more to hard-code the CC=gcc flag on the configure line. This db package's configure script appears not to pickup gcc more often than it does, so, unless you're using cc, it's best just to force gcc.

Now that we've just gotten through a marathon "how to" on creating Linux RPMS, I'd thought I'd look back at the old post I referenced at the beginning of the week regarding making your own Solaris packages.

That post was, and still is, theoretically sound. Although, looking back at it, I feel that it really lacked the kind of example work-up that would have made the instructions come back and hit home. So with reference to my original (admittedly dry) instruction on how to make your own Solaris pkg files, here's a quick example of the actual process of creating a package from compiling your software to the finished product. Hopefully this will not only flesh-out the original post, but also show how much simpler this is to do in reality than it is in theory :)

And, in an effort to make up for lost time and dispel any possibility of confusion, we're going to use a real freely-available source gzip that anyone can grab for free and walk through this on their own Solaris machine step-by-step, cut-and-paste. Here are the basic requirements in order to reproduce this on your own without having to do any extra work outside of the instructions posted:

1. Have gcc and make installed on your Solaris System.
2. Run Solaris on Sparc (not x_86 or Intel - although this should still work).
3. If possible, use the 64 bit version (As long as the "isainfo" or "isalist" commands return "sparcv9" somewhere in their output, you should be in the same boat I am as I do this compile and package creation. Again, this probably won't be an issue if you use 32 bit.

And that should be it. Now we just need to download the Berkeley DB 4.6.21 source gzipped tarball (available by clicking the name of the product on this line or here ;)

And off we go! I'm going to basically walk through this by example (what I'll actually type during the process) and leave out the tons of output from "configure" and "make," etc, so this doesn't get too hard to read. Hopefully, it will be painfully easy to understand :)

Step 1. Unpack and build your software (grab your Berkeley DB source now if you haven't already!

SPECIAL NOTE: This post has been updated to reflect the need to run configure from the build_unix subdirectory under the db-4.6.21 directory. You may also need to set CC=gcc as an option on your configure command line, but db should pick it up as long as it comes first in your PATH. Apologies for the typo.

host # mkdir /tmp/build
host # cp db-4.6.21.tar.gz /tmp/build/.
host # cd /tmp/build
host # gzip -d -c db-4.6.21.tar.gz|tar xvpf -
... <--- This will be shorthand for obligatory command output that doesn't make a difference to us here.
host # cd db-4.6.21
host # cd build_unix
host # ../dist/configure CC=gcc --prefix=/usr/local/db-4.6.21
...
host # make
...
host # make docdir=/usr/local/db-4.6.21/doc/4.6.21 install
...
host # cd /tmp/build
host # rm -r db-4.6.21

And we're done with the compile :)

Step 2. Create the Solaris pkg file from our installation!

host # cd /usr/local/db-4.6.21
host # find . -print|pkgproto >prototype
host # echo "i pkginfo" >>TEMPFILE
host # echo "i checkinstall" >>TEMPFILE
host # cat prototype >>TEMPFILE
host # mv TEMPFILE prototype
host # vi checkinstall <--- For the two files we need to edit, I'll just indent and put the contents of each below the lines where I use "vi" (my favorite editor). You can edit the file with any editor you want :)

#!/bin/sh

 platform_should_be="sparc"
 platform=`uname -p`
 if [ ${platform} != ${platform_should_be} ]
 then
  echo "PROGRAM can only be installed on ${platform_should_be}"
  exit 1
 fi
 exit

host # vi pkginfo

SUNW_PRODNAME="SunOS"
 SUNW_PRODVERS="5.9"
 SUNW_PKGTYPE="usr"
 PKG="MTdb"
 NAME="Berkely DB-4.6.21"
 VERSION="4.6.21"
 VENDOR="Open Source"
 ARCH="sparc"
 EMAIL="eggi@comcast.net"
 CATEGORY="application"
 BASEDIR=/usr/local/db-4.6.21
 DESC="http://linuxshellaccount.blogspot.com DB-4.6.21"
 PSTAMP="The Linux And Unix Menagerie"
 CLASSES="none"

host # pkgmk -b `pwd` -d /tmp
...
host # pkgtrans -s /tmp /tmp/build/MTdb.pkg MTdb
...
host # rm -r /tmp/MTdb

And now you can move the /tmp/build/MTdb.pkg file anywhere on the file system you want. You should be able to utilize all the applicable "pkginfo" command options against it and it should install as easily (assuming you left it in /tmp/build) as this (of course, it won't be any harder if you install it from anywhere else ;)

host # pkgadd -d /tmp/build/MTdb.pkg

also

host # pkgrm MTdb <--- If you ever want to delete it from the package repository

Hope you enjoyed that whirlwind tour of a Solaris package (pkg) build in almost-real-time. Hopefully, also, it helps complement our previous post on creating Solaris packages by giving you a solid working example to compare against the theory!

Cheers,


, Mike

linux unix internet technology

Creating Your Own Linux RPM's - The Initial Software Build.

Greetings,

A while back, we took a look at creating your own pkg files for Solaris Unix. Today we're going to continue in that tradition, but take a look at the (some would say) simpler process of creating your own RPM's for Linux. These builds have been tested on both RedHat and SUSE, since they seem like polar opposites to me no matter how many similarities they have ;)

The process of building RPM's is much simpler than creating packages for Solaris in that the post-software build portion only consists of creating one specification file and then running one command. Fewer steps, and the ability to add all of your software information into one specification file, makes for a much tighter (and easier to modify or reproduce) software packaging system.

Even though the process is simpler, I've split this post up into a few parts so that each aspect of RPM package creation could be given it's fair share of attention.

The first step in creating a Linux package (or RPM which - technically - stands for RedHat Package Manager, although the format is used on many flavors of Unix) is to actually compile (or build) the software you're going to be packaging. It's important to either log your output (or, at least, the commands you execute) during the build process, as that information is going to be needed by the "rpmbuild" command that we'll ultimately use to create the finished product.

For the purposes of this "how to," we'll assume that you've downloaded the source for PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz already and have "gcc" (or a suitable compiler) and "make" on your system. Also, we'll assume that you have the user privilege required to build and install software on your system.

Now, we'll get going, step by step:

1. First copy off your PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz file into an appropriate location (I usually put them in a place like /usr/src/packages/SOURCES, since that file will be where it needs to be later, but you can copy it off to anywhere you like):

host # pwd
/users/me/softbuilds
host # ls
PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz
host # cp PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz /usr/src/packages/SOURCES/. <--- Note that /usr/src/packages may be a completely different location depending on the flavor of Linux you're running, but the subfolder SOURCES should always be there. The same note will apply to all other instance where I mention the /usr/src/packages directory.

2. Now use gzip and tar to unpack your gzipped source (or, use tar for both operations if possible. For instance, Gnu Tar has a -z flag that you can use to avoid calling "gunzip" (or "gzip") altogether:

host # gunzip PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz
host # tar xpf PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar

or

host # gzip -d -c PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz||tar xpf -

or

host # tar xzpf PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz <--- Gnu tar required for this (Probably the default for your Linux OS)

3. Change directories into the directory created by unpacking your gzipped PACKAGE-3.2-1.tar.gz file and be sure to read the INSTALL and/or README file(s). One (or both) of these will almost invariably include the specific commands you need to run in order to build and install your software.

host # cd PACKAGE-3.2-1

4. Follow the instructions to build your software. Below, I've run down what a typical install of a generic software package would look like (and assumes no errors). The one important thing to note below is the use of the "--prefix=" argument to the "configure" command. We want to be sure to build our package into a completely separate directory than we actually intend for the RPM to install later. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's actually the easiest way to complete some of the upcoming "rpmbuild" steps and avoid utter confusion or complication ;)

host # ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/PACKAGE-3.2-1
... <--- Probably lots of output. Generally only helpful if you have errors. There may be any number of other options, aside from "--prefix=," that you'll need to pass to configure, but that should be explained in the INSTALL and/or README file(s). Worst case, you can run "./configure --help" to see a list of all available options for configuring the build of the software you're installing.
host # make <--- This is the command that will run through the compile/build of your software package.
host # make check <--- Sometimes "make test," although this option may not even be available in your software's Makefile.
host # make install <--- This will complete your installation.

The specifics of your build may be more or less complicated, but (from the above, assuming all went well) we should have noted the following successfully run commands, in order:

host # configure --prefix=/usr/local/PACKAGE-3.2-1
host # make
host # make check/test
host #make install

You actually won't be using the --prefix flag directly in your specification file later, but you'll need to know the prefix, so it's best just to jot it down.

5. Now that your build is complete, generate a list of all the files that got created when you did your build and keep this for future use (you'll need it for the specification file later). A quick and easy way to do this is:

host # find /usr/local/PACKAGE-3.2-1 >FILELIST <--- Redirect all your output to FILELIST.

or

host # find /usr/local/PACKAGE-3.2-1 >FILELIST 2>&1 <--- Only if, for some bizarre reason, find sends any output to STDERR that's important.

Now you've got your software package built and are ready to move on to the next step in building your RPM package. We'll pick up there tomorrow!

Until then,

, Mike

linux unix internet technology