Re: make install bites...

[Sherwood Botsford <sherwood@space.ualberta.ca>]

> Sherwood Botsford wrote:
> > 
> > Ok, I've mislaid 12 hours worth of mail.   Didn't realize that make
> > install was so thorough.
> > 
> > I think I've picked up all the pieces.
> > 
> > In my humble not-very-good-as-a-sysadmin opinion that make install needs a
> > couple of improvments:
> > 
> > 1. Since zmailer installs so many programs, I'd like an option
> > 'make install-list' that would tell me exactly what it's going to
> > go where.  Doing a make -n install is not trivial to interpret.
> > 
> > 2. It's not clear from INSTALL how to keep zmailer from installing
> > stuff into the /usr/local/bin.  It gives the impression that this
> > stuff in installed into MAILBIN.

Rerunning configure with a --with-prefix=/usr/local/zmailer didn't work.
But 'setenv prefix /usr/local/zmailer' and make -e install seems to.

> > 
> > 3. I'd like a way to install the binaries so that the tree was in place
> > for trials, but NOT overwrite the existing mail programs.
> > That is, I want router, and scheduler and sendmail and ... installed in
> > /usr/local/zmailer/bin, but I don't want a link from /usr/lib/sendmail to
> > /usr/local/zmailer/bin/sendmail

Do this by 'setenv LN_S NO' (actually set it anything but "ln -s")
and it will just whine at you to do it later.

> > 
> > 4. I'd like a way to *quickly* back out if things didn't work.
> > Perhaps as part of the install we could have a pair of scripts,
> > makelinks and unmakelinks
> 

On Thu, 5 Dec 1996, Peter Ziobrzynski wrote:
> A very simple approach that I use is to keep all of the zmailer
> installation in its own tree: /usr/local/zmailer. The only files that
> stick out from there are /etc/mail.conf and /etc/zmailer.conf and on
> binaries side only sendmail and rmail. These four files don't change
> much or at all.
> 
> When I bring the new code I move the /usr/local/zmailer to zmailer.old
> and do a complete installation. The only thing left to do is to copy my
> old contents of db from zmailer.old, create log subdirectory (make
> install does not do it), and create link for router.cf.

This is ok, if you're already using zmailer.  If you're using another
mailing system, it's not quite so clear.

I think I'll copy current mail binaries into /usr/mailbin/,
then replace the files with symbolic links to /usr/mailbin/whatever

This is a relatively minor change, and in many ways makes more sense
than the present one.  (I like to have directory trees map in obvious
ways to functions.)  Then to test it;
mv /usr/mailbin /usr/mailbin.real ; 
ln -s /usr/local/zmailer/bin /usr/mailbin

To undo it,
rm /usr/mailbin
mv /usr/mailbin.real /usr/mailbin

When finally ready to accept zmailer as permanent mailer, replace the
links that point to /usr/mailbin with ones that point to
/usr/local/zmailer/bin, saving a level of indirection.



Sherwood Botsford | "Go to father, she said, when I asked her to wed.
Physics Dept      | She knew that I knew that her father was dead.
U of Alberta      | She knew that I knew what a life he had led.
Edmonton, AB,     | She knew that I knew what she meant when she said,
T6G 2J1		  | "Go to father."
New address: sherwood@vega.math.ualberta.ca