Re: make distcheck and the /etc dir

[Jason Curl]

Noah Slater wrote:
> >    # Makefile.am for installing configuration data
> >    etcdir=/etc/lx2005
> >    etc_DATA = serlog.conf
>
> This is seriously broken. What if my /etc directory is read-only, for 
> example.

As I mentioned below, I could override this by using:
  make DESTDIR="/home/user/progs" install

The software itself has command line options to override where it gets 
its configuration. It uses '/etc/lx2005' as a last resort, where the 
default files go.

It would use what the user provides on the command line for a path, then 
'/usr/local/etc/' then '/etc' in that order.

> This breaks any hope of getting a VPATH build.
>
> > When I run 'make distcheck' it fails as it cannot install the files to
> > '/etc/lx2005'.
>
> Indeed, because distcheck makes sure the build uses VPATH.

As I found out.

> > I would very much like the location of the configuration
> > files to be independent of $(prefix) as the locations my project
> > searches are independent of where it was installed.
>
> This is a Bad Thing IMO. You should alter your program to look in
> multiple places for it's configuration. If you are certain that the
> configuration file should live here despite the wishes of the
> installer your program should by default it will check for
> '/etc/lx2005' and failing back to '$(prefix)/lx2005' - though this is
> still broken.
>
> > How can I get 'make distcheck' to work with this configuration?
>
> You cannot.
>
> > Alternatively, I'm open for other ideas of implementation.
>
> Why is it so important for configuration files to live at /etc?
A consistent place to look for default settings, machine settings are 
overrided by putting something in '/usr/local/etc' and user settings are 
overrided by the command line.