Re: [BackupPC-users] unable to build backuppc from source

[G.W. H. <ba...@ju...>]

Hello again,

On Sun, 16 Nov 2025, daggs via BackupPC-users wrote:

> I'm working on building backuppc from source on alpine linux on the
> home folder of a user and I've encountered an issue.  when I clone
> the main backuppc repo to my home folder and run perl configure.pl
> inside it like the readme states the build fails stating that I need
> to install from a tarball or run makeDist.  So I've extracted the
> latest tag name for the tags list ad used it as version, now I'm
> getting this:
> 
> $ ./makeDist --version 4.4.1rc1
> ./makeDist: bin/BackupPC_Admin_SCGI contains an error (or someone killed me)
> 
> any idea what am I missing or how to fix  this issue?

Alpine Linux leans toward the minimalist end of the spectrum so you're
probably just missing a few Perl modules.  The makeDist script checks
that the BackupPC scripts which it's packaging can be compiled by Perl
before it makes the package.  To do that it runs 'perl -c scriptName'
where scriptName is any of the BackupPC scripts.  When a module needed
by a BackupPC script can't be loaded by the system, you see the error
message which you quoted.  Might be you need at least the SCGI module.

I've just committed a change to makeDist which adds the '--verbose'
option.  If you grab the new version and run that with --verbose added
to the command line you will probably see what's missing from your
kit.  As makeDist is a Perl script you could edit it.  You'd get most
of the verbosity I've added by editing one line in your existing copy.
Just remove the string '2> /dev/null' from the *last* of the three
occurrences of that string in the file.  It looks like the first two
tests ran OK, so you don't need to worry about them, but each tests
only one script.  The third test is in a loop and tests dozens.

When you find which modules you need you might be able to install them
from an Alpine package using 'apk'; if they aren't packaged for Alpine
you can grab them from e.g. CPAN.  You can install them to a location
under your home directory if you wish, but it's unusual to do that and
you'd need to make sure that Perl could then find them when needed by
adding the correct path(s) to Perl's environment at runtime.

Please let me know how you get on.  So far, you're doing famously!

-- 

73,
Ged.