New version of the fakeroot patch

[Julien Laffaye]

Hi porters,

I do agree with the idea of a fakeroot.
As bapt said, it will make supporting NOPORTDOCS easier: no more
patches against the vendor Makefile(s) !!!

It will also ensure the quality of the _packages_. For example, if the
port create an empty folder, it's common that the package forget to
create it.
As the real installation is made with the pkg_add tool with this
implementation, the porter will directly notice the issue.

The major concern with this implementation is, IMHO, the intensive
usage of I/O. But I'm sure we can reduce its impact on performance.

To conclude, I think this patch is worth it.
It'd be interesting to have the advice of a portmgr@ to know if it
gonna break some obscure parts of the ports framework.

Regards,
Julien

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Baptiste Daroussin
<baptiste.daroussin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have updated the fakeroot patch, it now can apply on an uptodate version of
> the ports.
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/133815
>
> For information the fakeroot patch is a port of the midnightbsd's mports fakeroot
> to freebsd's ports.
>
> What it does:
> - it is optional: you can activate it globally with USE_FAKE=yes in
>  /etc/make.conf or per ports by adding USE_FAKE=yes in the ports Makefile
>
> - it create a fakeroot directory in the WRKDIR where all the binary are
>  installed first
>
> - then it creates a package using the plist and finding its files only in the
>  fakeroot directory
>
> - in the end it installs the created packages
>
> - it respects the DESTDIR implementation (it is not the same kind of feature nor
>  the same goal)
>
> - it does not require any modification on actual ports (except for those which
>  are already not clean) but will allow to cleanup some ports if wanted.
>
> Why this patch:
> - it prevents installing crufts thing on users systems (only what is found in
>  the plist is really installed, so the package is always clean)
>
> I now that porters should take care of not breaking the plist, but it often
> happens, helping them by a system that completly use the plist file is IMHO a
> better thing, and it prevents users from being inpacted by a lazy porter.
>
> - it allow to create tinderbox that does not need to install a ports to get the
>  package build, only build-depends ports will be installed
>
> - it allow easier handling of NOPORTDOCS, NOPORTEXAMPLES and so on, because it
>  creates the packages first using plist to know which files should be packaged,
>  the porter should only take care of one case, the case everything is
>  installed, then he adapts the plists to have or not some files depending on
>  the options the user have.
>
> This should cleanup a lot some ports, and should easier the respectness of
> some porting guidelines
>
> What could be done:
> because it generates packages first we could imagine some lint programs that
> analyse the package content to test that it respects some of the freebsd
> recommandation for packages (usefull for porters), it could help the validation
> of new/update ports submission and help preventting commiting buggy stuff.
>
> Limitation:
> this path (currently activable on depend) add from disk usage than the way ports
> actually works:
>
> without the patch:
> build -> copy on the filesystem
> with the path:
> build -> copy-on-fakeroot->package_building->package-installing
>
> In the future it could be improved by provinding a version of pkg_create that
> fake the package creation by directly install on FS so that could become
> build->copy-on-fakeroot->package-installing
>
> This patch is not yet complete, it should work with classical ports that use
> gmake or make and with python, I have only done that currenly as a proof of
> concept.
>
> Tell me if you think that this patch could be interesting or not
>
> Regards,
> Bapt