Re: [Refdb-users] Build Debian bin pkg from Ubunt scr pkg

[Torsten B. <br...@ph...>]

Hallöchen!

Stefan Schlee writes:

> [...]
>
> To make a long story short: 
>
> [...]
>
>  - After the binary installation I started the "refdb-init" script
> as root.

I don't like that.  Unless there are very good reasons, a daemon
should have non-root privileges.  RefDB works fine as an ordinary
user.

> To execute this script successfully I had to make two minor
> modifications (Torsten already notes difficulties concerning this
> script in the README.Debian file of the package.)
>
>  -- I had the change the value of MYREFDBCTL to
>     "/etc/init.d/refdb"

Fixed.

>  -- I had to execute: "/usr/sbin/refdbd" as root and change the
> ownership of the "/var/lib/refdb/db" hierarchy afterwards.

Then I have to fix this because this must not be necessary.
Probably it's a Sqlite config issue because with Postgres, the
limited privileges work fine, including properly writing the PID and
the log file.

> [...]
>
>     Note: I first tried:
>
>     chown refdb:refdb /var/lib/refdb/db
>
>     su refdb -c "$MYREFDBD -a -e 0 -l 6 -L /var/log/refdb/refdbd.log -P
> /var/run/refdb/refdbd.pid -u $dbadmin_name -w $dbadmin_password" || endScript
> "Failed to install or upgrade main database" "failed"
>
>     but that did not work (denied access to the log/pid files ?)

No, PID and log files are set to permissions which allow the "refdb"
user to write them.

> [...]
>
>  - I do not know which of the original shortcomings have already
> been addressed in a possible new version of Torsten's Ubuntu
> source package.  As I am building and installing in a Debian
> context, I do not know if these (or which of these) shortcomings
> should be handled in an Ubuntu package.

I didn't do anything except fixing the wrong MYREFDBCTL path above.
I won't have time for it until the weekend.

Anyway, the Ubuntu package must be built in a way that only minimal
modifications are necessary for Debian.  I don't have any experience
with packages beyond packaging RefDB, let alone with packaging for
Debian.  How is it done normally?  Is there one "source" package (my
Ubuntu package in this case) and one "derived" package with a couple
of meta-patches (your Debian package in this case)?  How do
packagers organise this?

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus
                   Jabber ID: tor...@ja...
                                  or http://bronger-jmp.appspot.com