Build Frustrations

[Dan Mahoney, System Admin]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007, Jerry McAllister wrote:

>> Apache2 is a complete piece of crap.  "Portable Runtime" my ass.  Was
>> there something so wrong with APACI?  Apache1.3 built out of the box on
>> every system in the world.
>>
>> Using ports is no better.  And again, I'll take anything anyone can offer
>> to explain half this behavior:
>>
>
> I am using Apache 2.xx with no problem on several machines.
> I installed it from ports with no problem.
> Since you are determined to proceed against recommendations it
> is hard to help you.    I wouldn't be surprised if you do not
> get many responses.

You know, there was a time when the handbook and man security actually 
recommended NOT using the port and building from scratch -- and if you 
want the finest-grained control over what you're building this is still 
the case, especially when some features haven't made it into ports yet.

(Like, oh...when the whole of the ports tree goes into a freeze for a 
release that's "upcoming" but doesn't have a todo list, a schedule, or 
anything else on the FBSD site).

Actually, someone (two different someones) managed to answer both issues.

The ports issue was caused by stale cruft in /var/db/pkg and the fix was 
to remove basically all the automake/autotools/autoconf packages and start 
over.  I also said "screw it" and nuked the apr-db42 port (for reasons 
mentioned earlier).

Apache from ports then built fine (which meant I had an option to fall 
back on, if need be).

Someone on the APR-devel list pointed out that I can do a setenv to define 
CFLAGS and LDFLAGS to include /usr/local/lib to fix build issues.

This allowed apache2-non-ports to compile.  However the question in my 
mind that still bears answering is: why apr would FIND such a library as 
installed (i.e. not fail at configure-time) but then fail to compile. 
I.e. why does the APR not set CFLAGS and LDFLAGS correctly.

This is not a question for -questions, but I'm stating it here in case 
anyone has similar issues.

-Dan

--

"Is Gushi a person or an entity?"
"Yes"

-Bad Karma, August 25th 2001, Ezzi Computers, Quoting himself earler, referring to Gushi

--------Dan Mahoney--------
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