[Openvas-distro] openvas-libraries: DESTDIR missing

[Tim Brown]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 06:51:04AM +0100, Tim Brown wrote:
>> On Tuesday 15 April 2008 14:09:39 Jan-Oliver Wagner wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I was just working on a RPM package for openvas-libraries and
>>> stumbled across missing DESTDIR use in some Makefiles of
>>> this module.
>>>
>>> Guess this will hurt the Debian packages as well. Tim?
>>>
>>> We use DESTDIR consistently only for openvas-client so far.
>>> Should we patch all other modules to use it as well?
>>
>> The Debian packaging scripts reset prefix during the make install like so:
>>
>> $(MAKE) install prefix=$(tmp)/usr
>
> This is not correct. The 'prefix' definition gets hardcoded in the built
> binaries.

From nessus-libraries-2.2.10/debian/rules:

<snip>
install: build-stamp
         dh_testdir
         dh_testroot
         dh_clean -k
         $(MAKE) install prefix=$(tmp)/usr
</snip>

The prefix value at build time will be embedded, it's overridden during 
install.

> DESTDIR is needed, I do not understand why it was removed.
>
> Please do not deviate from coding standards. For more information about
> DESTDIR please see http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#DESTDIR
>
> - prefix: is used to tell the binaries where they will be running
>  (that's why it's defined in the configure)
>
> - DESTDIR: is used to tell the install targets that they have to install in a
>  non-standard location
>  (that's why it is used in the Makefiles)

I don't disagree, but the nessus build files are pretty awful and the 
Debian packages spend a lot of time working around this.  It's not a 
simple example of an autoconf based project IMO.  The server component is 
even better with direct calls to the BSD install script in the rules file. 
IIRC it doesn't even attempt to use the make based install routine.  See 
my comments about fixing it.  (Ideal world I'd rewrite the 
autoconf/automake stuff in all modules as it's all pretty painful).

Tim
-- 
Tim Brown
<mailto:timb at nth-dimension.org.uk>
<http://www.nth-dimension.org.uk/>