Bugzilla Bug 65717

I am using sys-apps/partimage-0.6.4-r1. I have encountered several significant
problems both with the way it was installed, and the application itself. Most
of the problems appear to be due to the application. These problems have
prevented me from using it in the way it was intended.

Merging with the ssl USE flag set, partimage is compiled with SSL support.
Trying to start partimaged results in errors in it's logs about the key file,
which isn't even found. It wants mkservercert or some such script, which is no
where to be found. In the docs (which are very poorly done and old), there is
no mention of disabling SSL. I was able to google around and found people who
for some reason thought -n or --nossl would turn off SSL support, but it never
worked for any of them. The logs also mentioned reading the partimagedusers man
page, but there isn't one. There is also no document talking about it in
/usr/doc/. To sum this part up, the documentation on partimage is very old and
lacking, and in some cases wrong. The program sometimes points users at
documents or man pages that don't even exist, or weren't installed by the
ebuild.

What I had to do was pass -ssl as a USE flag and remerge. Now it no longer
complains about SSL, but of course, the data is in the clear.

Other issues are that running partimaged --help lists some flags, here's one
for example:

sys-apps/partimage-0.6.4-r1

Yet running partimage -d /some/existing directory results in:

(null): Bad address

And then it exits. On partimage's own forums there are a lot of confused people
with various other documented options that do not work, and UNdocumented
options, which DO work. For the most part their issues on that forum weren't
solved.

I was finally able to get partimaged working by passing it --dest
/some/existing/directory . In the users file from earlier, it had no hints at
all as to it's format so I just stuck "badger" in there. Running the client
elsewhere, I connect to the server and it wants a username and also a password.
Users are left completely in the dark as to the format of the username file. I
could not figure it out.

And two final notes, the server has no clear indication as how to exit it, so
it has to be killed off manually (which may also leave the terminal trashed).
Also, there was no init.d script for the server, which was mentioned in bug
#59873.

Is upstream still working on this software? It's very frustrating trying to use
software with such poor documentation. The software looks promising, but I am
unable to use it with all of these issues combined.



Portage 2.0.50-r11 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r0, 2.6.7)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.7 i686 Pentium III (Katmai)
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.8p1
distcc 2.17 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632)
[disabled]
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-mcpu=pentium3 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -msse
-mfpmath=sse,387"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER=""
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config
/usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config
/usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/fax
/usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/bind /var/qmail/control
/var/spool/fax/etc"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-mcpu=pentium3 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -msse
-mfpmath=sse,387"
DISTDIR="/var/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs buildpkg ccache notitles sandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/
http://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo
ftp://gentoo.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/gentoo/source/ ftp://gentoo.ccccom.com"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/var/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/var/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X apache2 apm avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr chroot crypt cups dvdr encode
esd foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 imlib java jpeg kde kerberos ldap
libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis
opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl slang snmp
spell sse ssl svga tcpd tiff truetype x86 xml2 xmms xprint xv zlib"

While using the forums, I got a rather detailed reply which is supposed to get
partimage working properly. I haven't tried this so I don't know if it's going
to help at all.

The 12th posting, from BCC at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=229785

In my original post I made a mistake, the line just after

"Other issues are that running partimaged --help lists some flags, here's one for example:"

Is wrong, but I can't remember what I meant to put there.

Is this going anywhere?

To generate the ssl certificates, you need to run "ebuild $(portageq
portdir)/sys-apps/partimage/partimage-0.6.4-r1.ebuild config".

Okay, looks like that was spit out by the ebuild at the end so that one's my
fault.

The bug with "-d " returning (null) is an UPSTREAM bug. I've reported it and
gave the same fix as I did here.
(http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=106212&group_id=6212&func=browse)

Created an attachment (id=48408) [edit]
Patch for the server/partimaged-main.cpp file

Created an attachment (id=48409) [edit]
Lazy patch for the ebuild to apply the abovementioned patch

assume that the patch is called partimage-0.6.4-fixserverargs.diff

And, regarding upstream documentation, there's not much I can do about that,
apart from starting to write a partimage guide for gentoo. But that should
probably be a different bugreport (this one already focusses on the "-d"
error).

fixed in cvs, please test partimaged-0.6.4-r2.ebuild

closing bug then ... please file a new bug for any issues that come up