Re: statedir locations

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:
>
>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>
>>> John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:
>>>
>>>> It has come to my attention that guix packages (at least those with gnu build system)
>>>> default their statedirs to directories under /nix/store/.  Recall that the statedirs (ie: 
>>>> sharedstatedir localstatedir and runstatedir) are for installing data files *which the programs
>>>> modify while they run* [1].   Obviously a program cannot modify anything under /nix/store
>>>> I think we need to update the default configure flags.
>>>
>>> Yes.  We actually have a number of local modifications:
>>>
>>>   $ grep -e --localstatedir gnu/packages/*.scm | wc -l
>>>   5
>>>
>>> I think we should change gnu-build-system.scm to pass
>>> --localstatedir=/var, unless ‘configure-flags’ specify another setting.
>>>
>>> I’ll do that in ‘core-updates’.
>>
>> What about 'sharestatedir' and 'runstatedir'?
>
> ‘runstatedir’ is in the not-yet-released Autoconf, but otherwise, yeah,
> they all deserve the same treatment.

So there's a problem.  Lots of builds are now failing, because "make
install" often tries to create /var or /com and does not have sufficient
permissions to do so.

I'm not sure what to do about this.

      Mark