Re: Conventions for NFS sharing of binaries

From: Rick Denoire (100.17706_at_germanynet.de)
Date: 07/26/04 

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 22:36:07 +0200

nobody@tek.com (Kevin) wrote:

>> But I am not sure that I won't get a problem later. Do all packages
>> which install from source put their files beneath the /usr/local tree?
>
>Many can.

What I meant was whether they put all files beneath one directory
without spreading to other places outside this tree.

>
>> What if they use some server-dependent configuration files? Would they
>> be overwritten?
>
>Why would they be overwritten?

A couple of days ago, I installed a package in /usr/local which would
put a package.PID in /usr/local/lib at start time (this file contains
the process number). If I shared this software, well, every client
host would overwrite this file. Shutting down the damon would fail,
since the PID file would not contain the right process ID.

Even worst, if a shared package puts a config file in a shared
/usr/local/etc, and every server would use the package with a
different configuration, that would result in chaos! (Usually, names
of config files are hard wired).

Did I mention the possibility of sharing /usr/local readonly? Would
that work file for most tarballed software?

>> Well, other related questions would be:
>> If I want to install a different version of a software from source
>> which is already installed as an RPM package, what issues arise with
>> the PATH variable? (Because depending on it, the RPM version or the
>> /usr/local version will be used).
>
>Wouldn't /usr/local be ahead of other stuff in PATH?

Who said that users prefer the "extra" stuff instead of the system
owned one?

>Package managers deal with the problems you're citing. Learn how
>to use one. I'd recommend RPM as you mentioned that you're using
>Redhat.

I was addressing managing of unpackaged software (the one that is
delivered in source code as a tarball containing configure/make
skripts etc.). In general, you cannot "deinstall" (=delete) any
particular software because its files are mixed up with all others.

Bye
Rick Denoire

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