Bug 39588 – mirrorselect >> /etc/make.conf overwrites, not appends, to the file

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Release Media

[Description Jay Maynard (RETIRED) 2004-01-27 12:14:59 UTC]

The Install Guide suggests running "mirrorselect -a -s4 -o >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf" before the first emerge sync. On the 1.4-test1 Alpha LiveCD, at least, this overwrites the make.conf file instead of appending to the end of it. I had this result 6 separate times, every time I attempted to do it as documented.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Follow the Install Guide steps as documented.
2.At step 6a, issue the mirrorselect command as documented.
3.Look at /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf.
Actual Results:  
The /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf file contains only the line for GENTOO_MIRRORS. The previous 
contents have been destroyed.

Expected Results:  
The GENTOO_MIRRORS line should have been added to the end of the file.

The latest available Alpha LiveCD, 1.4-test1, on an Alphaserver 1000A 5/333 (Noritake-Primo) 
with 128 MB RAM and a Mylex DAC960 RAID controller, with a 6-drive RAID 0+1 configuration.

[Comment 1 Bob Johnson (RETIRED) 2004-01-27 14:55:56 UTC]

The command seems correct, but lets let alpha ppl take care of it

[Comment 2 Joe Millenbach 2004-01-31 10:55:00 UTC]

Did you verify the file was there before you issued this command?  If it wasn't then you'd of course only have the one line in make.conf

[Comment 3 Jay Maynard (RETIRED) 2004-01-31 11:20:43 UTC]

Here's what I did:

1) Edit /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf. This is documented in the previous step.
2) cp /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf.orig
3) mirrorselect -a -s4 -o >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf ... at this point, /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf contains just the one line.
4) cat /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf.orig /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf > /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf.new ...the .new file contains the contents of the .orig file and the line generated by mirrorselect, as expected.
5) mv /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf.new /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

At this point, I can proceed with the installation as documented.

This appears to be a problem in mirrorselect, as normal >> operations in the shell work correctly. I don't know just how mirrorselect can be going wrong, but it is.

[Comment 4 Aron Griffis (RETIRED) 2004-02-05 20:28:48 UTC]

I'm not ignoring this bug, just suspecting it will be resolved with a new LiveCD, whenever that happens

[Comment 5 Jay Maynard (RETIRED) 2004-03-12 13:27:56 UTC]

Aron's suspicion is correct. I've built a new LiveCD, and it does indeed fix this problem.

[Comment 6 Aron Griffis (RETIRED) 2004-03-13 07:45:07 UTC]

Please use Jay's new LiveCD for now.  We're hoping to get an "official" LiveCD for 2004.1 (with lots of help from Jay)