[Listproc-developer] Building Listproc under Linux

[John <jo...@eh...>]

I've got a couple notes here to go over.  First off, it seems as though
this version of Listproc depends on an old library from SleepyCat.  Ye old
Berkeley DB.  I tried compiling with their current version, and it doesn't
work.  They've got some docs that show you how to upgrade, so there's an
entry on a TODO list some where.  The reason that I bring this up is
because you need it to build Listproc, but it isn't included with the CVS
distribution.  I happend to have a copy that we got some time ago before
this was open sourced, so I've been working with that.  I haven't checked
yet with the sleepycat site to see if they still have that up for
download.  Should we let users know where to get it or include it
ourselves?  Or should we upgrade Listproc so it uses the latest DB lib?
;-)

The build process for Listproc is horrible, IMHO.  I list below what I had
to do to get it to build and install on my laptop running Linux.  I was
talking to Phillip Porch about using GNU's Autoconf system.  Does anyone
have any experiance with that program?  I don't, but I want to learn.  I
think that I may concentrate on that first, so that we can just do a
./configure, make and make install like every other package out there.  If
anyone has any notes on that please let me know!

In the meantime, I was thinking about creating an INSTALL file in the root
directory that would explain what you have to do to get the system
installed, unless there is one already that I missed.

Here's my notes of what I had to do to get it installed on my Linux
system.

Linux nuclear.dynup.net 2.4.18 #7 Sun Mar 31 01:48:33 EST 2002 i686
unknown
I'm using glibc v 2.2.5

First off, the way it's set up to build with the db library is a little
weird.  I put the dbm lib in the root listproc dir, (what SRCDIR is set
to) and then changed the line in makeincludes/Makefile.global to
DBDIR    = $(SRCDIR)/dbm
(that change is included in the patch).

Then, for my system, there were a couple of lines that were preventing me
from compiling in regexp.c.  I added a -D__LINUX__ to the Makefile.local
that I chose to use (Makeinclude.Linux-glibc2.1.1), and then did some
#ifndef in regexp.c.  I included the patch as an attachment to this
message..

Also, in the dbm directory, you'll need two symlinks
lpdb.h -> build_unix/db.h
liblpdb.a -> build_unix/libdb.a
The second one you make after you "make" the library.

So then make all finishes, allthough on my machine it complains about
using some mktempdir call or something like that, another TODO list entry.

make dist works too.

To install it, I had to copy the install.listproc and install.funcs from
the installation directory into the root directory *and* I had to tar.gz
the text directory into a file in the root directory that ends with .Z
like

tar zcf $SRCDIR/text.tar.Z text
from the installation directory (the installation script looks for it
there)

Then it was installed.  I still had to edit the aliases file for my
system, and the config file for listproc before I could run it (of
course.)  I was thinking it would also be nice if we could have another
script that could ask the user for values for the config file instead of
manually editing it.  I'd rather edit it myself, but some people might
prefer a script to do it.

So what I got on my list right now is:
*update the db code to work with newer DB lib
*implement autoconf, automake and other related tools
*maybe a script to configure system
though maybe not in that order.

Anyone have any comments or ideas?

John Davison
Unix System Administrator
EH.Net http://eh.net/
email : jo...@eh...