Gentoo Websites Logo
Go to: Gentoo Home Documentation Forums Lists Bugs Planet Store Wiki Get Gentoo!
Bug 25199 - apache2 symlinks binaries into /etc/
Summary: apache2 symlinks binaries into /etc/
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: [OLD] Server (show other bugs)
Hardware: All Linux
: High minor (vote)
Assignee: Donny Davies (RETIRED)
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-07-24 13:03 UTC by Roger Luethi
Modified: 2003-09-26 21:56 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Roger Luethi 2003-07-24 13:03:14 UTC
There's little data and very few binaries in /etc, which makes it
easy to "grep -r" for values. Unfortunately, apache2 does not only
link its modules into /etc, but also the whole /usr/lib, and that
is easily 100x more data to search than /etc proper.

There are obvious work-arounds for users, but it seems to me that
having apache2 without those symlinks (at least without the /usr/lib
one) would be the best solution. AFAIK the only other package with
symlinks to binaries in /etc is X which has a) less than half a
dozen of them and b) some historical precedent to begin with.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
Comment 1 SpanKY gentoo-dev 2003-07-24 20:49:44 UTC
other packages do it too ;) 
Comment 2 Roger Luethi 2003-07-25 03:02:56 UTC
> other packages do it too ;)

Then they're broken as well. FWIW I have over 650 packages
installed, and apache2 is the only one doing this (with the
the exception of X as noted above).

$ du -msL /etc/*|sort -n|tail -5
du: `/etc/apache2/lib/X11/mwm': No such file or directory
1       /etc/xpdfrc
1       /etc/zsh
6       /etc/X11
10      /etc/gconf
2391    /etc/apache2

The apache2 links don't fly with FHS, it seems, nor with
common practice. They make /etc backups harder (especially
if any other package has its _configuration_ files symlinked
elsewhere), and they make searching /etc a pain as well.

I am more convinced than ever that this should be fixed.
Comment 3 Donny Davies (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-07-28 19:08:45 UTC
hmm, ok so you dont like the layout.

i dont really have a problem with changing it all, if it irks you that much.
nobody has really complained about it before though.

problem is a lot of snippets in the portage tree will need changing.  not
a terribly big deal, just pretty tiresome to "fix" it all.

but about your backup issue -- your backup program doest grok symbolic
links?

i'll agree grep -R in /etc could be irritating however.
Comment 4 Roger Luethi 2003-07-29 04:17:54 UTC
> but about your backup issue -- your backup program doest grok symbolic
> links?

The backup program either follows sym link, or it doesn't. So if any
package has its config files outside /etc (but symlinked from there),
you have one of three choices:
- /usr/lib becomes part of your backup
- the symlinked config files are not in the backup
- you tell the backup program which symlinks (not) to follow

> i'll agree grep -R in /etc could be irritating however.

Makes me wonder what others do to find all places where a particular
string could be coming from :-).

Obviously, this is not urgent, but I strongly recommend changing
it. I don't know any other distro that puts serverroot into /etc,
and the apache default doesn't do that, either. I'm not sure if
"No binaries may be located under /etc." includes symlinked
directories, but if it does, then we're also in violation of
FHS 2.2 (3.7.2).

In fact this is so inconsistent with other distros and other Gentoo
server packages that I'm curious what the thinking behind this
configuration was, because there's certainly been a reason for it.
Comment 5 Donny Davies (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-07-29 11:25:23 UTC
> In fact this is so inconsistent with other distros and other Gentoo
> server packages that I'm curious what the thinking behind this

No, I'm afraid that's where you havent done your homework.

Look at Mandrake's Apache2 package.  This is where I've taken many
nice ideas from.  In Apache1 I needed to add a serverroot patch
but now in Apache2 I dont, presumably ASF added this support natively.

You might also look at advx.org, jmdault I believe is mostly behind
that and the Mandrake Apache stuff -- a very popular webserver indeed.

I believe the main motivation is being able to fairly flexibly put
together several webserver instances, with as little reconfiguration
and re-installation headaches as possible.  Shorter configration file
snip, etc...

I'm glad you agree it's not terrbly urgent because I'm not terribly
keen on changing it all around either :-)
Comment 6 Donny Davies (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-09-26 21:56:22 UTC
im staying with this config for now.  lets see where we get with the upcoming
*-config tools and perhaps it'll get changed around to "deal" with this.