The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

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dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Ashex posted:

I'm running 2.6.28-ARCH. Should mention that I'm running Arch i686. The root partition is on a separate disk from everything else.

Oh. I guess you created that partition when arch released their latest livecd, so then it was made just like mine.

So, uh, I'm guessing it's the drive then.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 00:06

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 03:17

KarmaticStylee: Apr 21, 2007; Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

Sorry if this a repeat question but:

What lite live-CD linux distro would you all recommend?

# ? Apr 17, 2009 00:20

Ashex: Jun 25, 2007; These pipes are cleeeean!!!

Zom Aur posted:

Oh. I guess you created that partition when arch released their latest livecd, so then it was made just like mine.

So, uh, I'm guessing it's the drive then.

I created it from my running system (I created a new root partition then moved everything to it from the old root partition) and just updated menu.lst to boot from the new root partition. I was afraid the drive would be going out. I expected fsck to catch it but the last time I did a force full check it came out clean :/

# ? Apr 17, 2009 00:21

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Ashex posted:

I created it from my running system (I created a new root partition then moved everything to it from the old root partition) and just updated menu.lst to boot from the new root partition. I was afraid the drive would be going out. I expected fsck to catch it but the last time I did a force full check it came out clean :/

Well, there was some bug in ext4 earlier that could cause data-loss. Could be that if it was a long time ago. Mine's been very stable, but I reinstalled when the updated livecd came out.

So yeah, try replacing the drive I guess.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 00:26

NZAmoeba: Feb 14, 2005; It turns out it's MAN!; Hair Elf

I need scripting help but I don't know anything about scripting

I'm trying to get a list of all users that logged in in the past week. Now I know the 'last' command will list every login attempt, but it lists their login name, not their 'real' name.

What's an efficient way of getting the output from last, taking information for the past week, and using that list of login names to get the actual human readable name of the user? This is something we'll want to do weekly in the future and the output can be easily 30 logins in a day.

Or is there something that can do this without having to script, again I know crap about scripting.

edit: I've gotten a decent output in a roundabout way, but I need to figure out how to sort it now

by sitting in the /home directory and running finger -s * > file I can get a file that lists every user (basically everyone has a corresponding directory in the /home folder) as well as when they last logged in (plus some other info I don't want). With the way the date is presented, is it sortable?

I get output like this:

code:

bra1  BRA 1        pts/10      *  Dec  6  2007 (x.x.x.x)
bra2  BRA 2        pts/5       *  Sep  5  2007 (x.x.x.x)
bra3  BRA 3        pts/8       *  Mar 11 16:19 (x.x.x.x)

With the date being printed like that, is there a way to sort it by date?

edit2: argh, I tried to copy the file to my xp machine and get excel to open it, but those are spaces between the columns not tabs so all the data is in one column drat that would have been easy.

NZAmoeba fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Apr 17, 2009

# ? Apr 17, 2009 03:12

NZAmoeba: Feb 14, 2005; It turns out it's MAN!; Hair Elf

well I discovered the 'text to columns' option in excel but that wasn't perfect and isn't a permanent solution anyway.

Either way, to make things more annoying I want to run this same thing on another server we have, but it runs some old version 5.2 of SunOS and doesn't have 'finger', so I'm kinda back to square one.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 06:22

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

Ok, so here's the problem: I'm currently generating my email-signature dynamically from my blog's rss, so it always features the latest entry. That works pretty well.

Now what I've started doing is piping that signature-generator to ttytter, a command-line interface to Twitter. This allows me to publish my latest rants to identi.ca and Twitter with the push of a button. I like it a lot.

But I'm a lazy guy and I would like the whole process to be completely automatic. I.e. set up a cron job. But I don't update my blog daily, so for a daily cron job to work properly without spamming Twitter with duplicate links, there should be some sort of check. But how do I do that? I was thinking about mv'ing "signature" to "signature.old" and then somehow do some magic with diff (of which I know next to nothing).

Sorry for being so complicated, thanks for reading. Oh and here's that signature-generator-script:

code:

#!/bin/bash
curl -s http://example.com/rss.xml | \
xpath -q -e '//item[position()=1]/title/text()' > ~/signature; \
echo " " >> ~/signature; \
curl -s http://is.gd/api.php?longurl=$(curl -s http://example.net/rss.xml | \
xpath -q -e '//item[position()=1]/link/text()') >> ~/signature

cat ~/signature | \
tr -d '\r\n' | \
/home/username/bin/ttytter -script -user=example:examplepass

Yeah don't ask about that echo and tr -d - I'm really a noob when it comes to scripting.

mike12345 fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Apr 17, 2009

# ? Apr 17, 2009 09:18

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

KarmaticStylee posted:

Sorry if this a repeat question but:

What lite live-CD linux distro would you all recommend?

To just take a first shot at Linux? Try Ubuntu.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 15:44

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

MargotK posted:

But I'm a lazy guy and I would like the whole process to be completely automatic. I.e. set up a cron job. But I don't update my blog daily, so for a daily cron job to work properly without spamming Twitter with duplicate links, there should be some sort of check. But how do I do that? I was thinking about mv'ing "signature" to "signature.old" and then somehow do some magic with diff (of which I know next to nothing).

The easiest solution would probably be to have a separate file with just the URL of the post you last published, and have the cron script make sure the URL you're about to publish is different from the one you last published.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 15:52

Polygynous: Dec 13, 2006; welp

MargotK posted:

But I'm a lazy guy and I would like the whole process to be completely automatic. I.e. set up a cron job. But I don't update my blog daily, so for a daily cron job to work properly without spamming Twitter with duplicate links, there should be some sort of check. But how do I do that? I was thinking about mv'ing "signature" to "signature.old" and then somehow do some magic with diff (of which I know next to nothing).

Assuming the rss isn't dynamically generated you should be able to run curl with an If-Modified-Since header based on the file signature:

code:

curl -s -H "If-Modified-Since: $(date -uR -r ~/signature)" http://example.com/rss.xml

Then if rss.xml hasn't been updated the result should be empty.

Polygynous fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Apr 17, 2009

# ? Apr 17, 2009 15:59

KarmaticStylee: Apr 21, 2007; Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

Lucien posted:

To just take a first shot at Linux? Try Ubuntu.

Not my first shot, I've used Ubuntu. I'm looking for something even lighter than Ubuntu... maybe just to VIM and see a web site

# ? Apr 17, 2009 18:08

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

spoon0042 posted:

Assuming the rss isn't dynamically generated you should be able to run curl with an If-Modified-Since header based on the file signature:
code:
curl -s -H "If-Modified-Since: $(date -uR -r ~/signature)" [url]http://example.com/rss.xml[/url]
Then if rss.xml hasn't been updated the result should be empty.

Thanks, I was hoping for something like this. Will give it a try.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 20:02

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

KarmaticStylee posted:

Not my first shot, I've used Ubuntu. I'm looking for something even lighter than Ubuntu... maybe just to VIM and see a web site

Try Tiny Core Linux, it's pretty "light" (~10 MB).

# ? Apr 17, 2009 20:06

taiyoko: Jan 10, 2008

Okay, this is driving me a bit batty, so maybe someone can help?

My friend introduced me to Linux Mint, which if I understand correctly is similar enough to Ubuntu Hardy that it can use most of the same packages. It looked really spiffy and I wanted to try it out on my own computer.

I managed to get it installed, however, my ATI Radeon X1550 PCI-E card absolutely refuses to play nicely. I have spent the last day and a half googling for a solution, trying everything I could to get it to work, at one point even accidentally making my install completely FUBAR, forcing me to reinstall Mint. I still can't get it to work with anything but the vesa driver, and thus shiny Compiz won't run. Anything else I try crashes xserver.

If I could just get this to work, and find a decent media center frontend that worked, I'd actually start considering swapping the whole thing over from Windows XP.

# ? Apr 17, 2009 20:15

KarmaticStylee: Apr 21, 2007; Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

MargotK posted:

Try Tiny Core Linux, it's pretty "light" (~10 MB).

Awesome, thanks! Just what I was looking for

# ? Apr 17, 2009 22:56

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

I bought an external enclosure with esata connectivity. When I plug it in, nothing happens at all. There is no recognition by my system (dmesg | tail shows no activity). If I plug it in via the usb connector it works just fine.

My motherboard is an Asus PSK SE that has a built-in esata port. The bios has one setting for SATA: compatability mode or enhanced mode. I have always had it on enhanced mode.

I have recompiled my colonel to include the SATA AHCI driver, this seems to make no difference.

What else can I do? I have never used an esata device before.

edit: My bios has another option. Configure SATA as: IDE is the only choice! I have no idea what this is doing.

other people fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Apr 18, 2009

# ? Apr 18, 2009 18:46

Grigori Rasputin: Aug 21, 2000; WE DON'T NEED ROME TELLING US WHAT TO DO

I have the same problem Kaluza-Klein, I think you have to manually mount the drive itself in the OS, it will not automount.

edit: I just use it in USB2 mode, since it's way easier to manage. Wouldn't mind hearing a simple solution as well.

# ? Apr 18, 2009 20:15

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Grigori Rasputin posted:

I have the same problem Kaluza-Klein, I think you have to manually mount the drive itself in the OS, it will not automount.

edit: I just use it in USB2 mode, since it's way easier to manage. Wouldn't mind hearing a simple solution as well.

Nothing shows up in /dev when I plug it in, so the issue is way beyond automounting.

# ? Apr 18, 2009 20:21

obso: Jul 30, 2000; OBSOLUTELY

KarmaticStylee posted:

Awesome, thanks! Just what I was looking for

drat Small Linux is also a pretty good choice (not quite as stripped down as tiny core), or Puppy linux. I mainly use DSL when I need something small and light.

# ? Apr 18, 2009 20:32

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Kaluza-Klein posted:

I bought an external enclosure with esata connectivity. When I plug it in, nothing happens at all. There is no recognition by my system (dmesg | tail shows no activity). If I plug it in via the usb connector it works just fine.

My motherboard is an Asus PSK SE that has a built-in esata port. The bios has one setting for SATA: compatability mode or enhanced mode. I have always had it on enhanced mode.

I have recompiled my colonel to include the SATA AHCI driver, this seems to make no difference.

What else can I do? I have never used an esata device before.

edit: My bios has another option. Configure SATA as: IDE is the only choice! I have no idea what this is doing.

It seems the ICH9 southbridge on the P35 chipset my board has does not support AHCI, which is a requirement for the esata port under linux? Or something. So this will never work unless I get a new controller card or motherboard. Maybe.

# ? Apr 18, 2009 21:41

mystes: May 31, 2006

Kaluza-Klein posted:

It seems the ICH9 southbridge on the P35 chipset my board has does not support AHCI, which is a requirement for the esata port under linux? Or something. So this will never work unless I get a new controller card or motherboard. Maybe.

According to this the ICH9 should have AHCI support so this probably shouldn't be the problem.

Apparently it is possible to do something like:

quote:

echo "- - -" | sudo tee /sys/class/scsi_host/host#/scan

(replacing # appropriately) to rescan the bus ("warmplug") instead of relying on hotplug support to do this automatically.

# ? Apr 19, 2009 01:26

Lucid Smog: Dec 13, 2004; Easily understood air pollution.

NZAmoeba posted:

I need scripting help but I don't know anything about scripting

I'm trying to get a list of all users that logged in in the past week. Now I know the 'last' command will list every login attempt, but it lists their login name, not their 'real' name.

I'm not quite tired so I decided to hopefully solve this for you with a short python program.

Run it like this and you'll get a Windows/Excel friendly CSV file:

code:

last | whatever.py | unix2dos > outputfile.csv

It only looks at stuff from the past week. There's a little if statement in there (at line 22) which you can remove if you want it to do this for the whole output of last.

code:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys, time, datetime, pwd

theYear = datetime.datetime.now().year
tFormat = '%Y %b %d %H:%M'
weekAgo = datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(days=7)

for x in sys.stdin.readlines():
	x = x.strip()
	f = x.split()
	if len(f) < 5 or x.startswith ('wtmp begins'):
		continue

	if len(f[-4]) == 5:
		tString = '%d %s %s %s' % (theYear, f[-6], f[-5], f[-4])
	else:
		tString = '%s %s %s 00:00' % (f[-4], f[-6], f[-5])
	tFields = time.strptime(tString, tFormat)[0:6]
	inDate = datetime.datetime(*tFields)
	
	if inDate < weekAgo:
		continue

	if f[1] == 'system' and f[2] == 'boot':
		f[1] = 'system boot'
		del f[2]
	
	try:
		realName = pwd.getpwnam(f[0])[4].rstrip(',')
	except KeyError:
		realName = f[0]

	outFields = f[0], realName, f[1], f[2], inDate
	print ', '.join(['"%s"' % x for x in outFields])

# ? Apr 19, 2009 03:57

NZAmoeba: Feb 14, 2005; It turns out it's MAN!; Hair Elf

Lucid Smog posted:

I'm not quite tired so I decided to hopefully solve this for you with a short python program.

Run it like this and you'll get a Windows/Excel friendly CSV file:

code:

last | whatever.py | unix2dos > outputfile.csv

It only looks at stuff from the past week. There's a little if statement in there (at line 22) which you can remove if you want it to do this for the whole output of last.

code:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys, time, datetime, pwd

theYear = datetime.datetime.now().year
tFormat = '%Y %b %d %H:%M'
weekAgo = datetime.datetime.now() - datetime.timedelta(days=7)

for x in sys.stdin.readlines():
	x = x.strip()
	f = x.split()
	if len(f) < 5 or x.startswith ('wtmp begins'):
		continue

	if len(f[-4]) == 5:
		tString = '%d %s %s %s' % (theYear, f[-6], f[-5], f[-4])
	else:
		tString = '%s %s %s 00:00' % (f[-4], f[-6], f[-5])
	tFields = time.strptime(tString, tFormat)[0:6]
	inDate = datetime.datetime(*tFields)
	
	if inDate < weekAgo:
		continue

	if f[1] == 'system' and f[2] == 'boot':
		f[1] = 'system boot'
		del f[2]
	
	try:
		realName = pwd.getpwnam(f[0])[4].rstrip(',')
	except KeyError:
		realName = f[0]

	outFields = f[0], realName, f[1], f[2], inDate
	print ', '.join(['"%s"' % x for x in outFields])

Thanks for this, just gave it a test run and the output is nice and exactly what I'm looking for, a lot of duplicate lines for multiple logins throughout the week but excel has a button to solve that anyway.

Our other SunOS server appears to only have perl, but I think we may just go about installing python on it, there's just a little bit of debate that has to run around whenever we want to install something on it because it's one of the few servers that are actually considered 'important' here.

NZAmoeba fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Apr 19, 2009

# ? Apr 19, 2009 23:19

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

mystes posted:

According to this the ICH9 should have AHCI support so this probably shouldn't be the problem.

Apparently it is possible to do something like:

(replacing # appropriately) to rescan the bus ("warmplug") instead of relying on hotplug support to do this automatically.

That just gets me a permission denied error?

This implies that the basic ICH9 does not support AHCI. Also see here.

# ? Apr 19, 2009 23:28

Lucid Smog: Dec 13, 2004; Easily understood air pollution.

NZAmoeba posted:

Thanks for this, just gave it a test run and the output is nice and exactly what I'm looking for, a lot of duplicate lines for multiple logins throughout the week but I'll figure out a way to tidy that up in excel easily enough.

Our other SunOS server appears to only have perl, but I think we may just go about installing python on it, there's just a little bit of debate that has to run around whenever we want to install something on it because it's one of the few servers that are actually considered 'important' here.

You could dedupe it in Python very easily. I didn't because it wasn't clear that was what you were after (all logins during the past week or the earliest or the latest). Perhaps I'll make said tweak and PM you (don't want to clutter the thread with too much code).

I hear you about installing stuff on servers that people are scared of messing up. Make a dumb user account and install python locally in his account, then you don't have to worry about screwing up the system. You can change the first line of the program (#!) to point to the full path of that Python and be good to go. I have done this with success on some very old Sun machines too. I don't know if the output of crazy old Sun last if the same as the GNU last. If it's not the program might require some more tweaking.

# ? Apr 19, 2009 23:29

NZAmoeba: Feb 14, 2005; It turns out it's MAN!; Hair Elf

Lucid Smog posted:

You could dedupe it in Python very easily. I didn't because it wasn't clear that was what you were after (all logins during the past week or the earliest or the latest). Perhaps I'll make said tweak and PM you (don't want to clutter the thread with too much code).

I hear you about installing stuff on servers that people are scared of messing up. Make a dumb user account and install python locally in his account, then you don't have to worry about screwing up the system. You can change the first line of the program (#!) to point to the full path of that Python and be good to go. I have done this with success on some very old Sun machines too. I don't know if the output of crazy old Sun last if the same as the GNU last. If it's not the program might require some more tweaking.

The output looks identical, however the file itself is much much bigger on the SunOS box, it doesn't appear to be culling old entries at all and goes all the way to the servers creation years ago... Could this potentially be a problem in the way the script works?

# ? Apr 20, 2009 00:30

Lucid Smog: Dec 13, 2004; Easily understood air pollution.

NZAmoeba posted:

The output looks identical, however the file itself is much much bigger on the SunOS box, it doesn't appear to be culling old entries at all and goes all the way to the servers creation years ago... Could this potentially be a problem in the way the script works?

It's not a problem, it'll just take a little longer to run. You could probably run a million lines through there and it would only take a couple of seconds. You could also set it up to rotate out the /var/log/wtmp files which is there the 'last' information is stored. Also last has a parameter I believe to tell it how many lines to output. You could just put like 10,000 or something and be relatively assured that you'll get the last week's worth of stuff. If the SunOS last doesn't have this command line option, another way to do it on any Unix would be to do:

code:

last | head -n 10000 | whatever.py

Then you'll only get the first 10,000 lines and last will just quit after head quits and whatever.py will be none the wiser.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 00:53

mystes: May 31, 2006

Kaluza-Klein posted:

That just gets me a permission denied error?

That's strange. You're right about the ICH9 (I also have one and the fact that it's using the ata_piix module rather than the ahci module apparently means that it's not using ahci) but that command works for me (well, I don't have anything plugged in so I don't really know but I don't get an error).

# ? Apr 20, 2009 01:27

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

I currently have windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 installed, and I use the GRUB Boot Loader(?) to decide if I want to boot XP or Ubuntu. My question is, what is the best way to remove all traces of XP and Ubuntu so I can do a fresh install of Windows 7?

I realize this is not purely a linux question, but I'm a little unsure how GRUB will react if I delete both partitions and have Windows 7 as the sole OS on the hdd.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 02:08

Cyne: May 30, 2007; Beauty is a rare thing.

Hughmoris posted:

I currently have windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 installed, and I use the GRUB Boot Loader(?) to decide if I want to boot XP or Ubuntu. My question is, what is the best way to remove all traces of XP and Ubuntu so I can do a fresh install of Windows 7?

I realize this is not purely a linux question, but I'm a little unsure how GRUB will react if I delete both partitions and have Windows 7 as the sole OS on the hdd.

Just go ahead and install Windows 7 - if you install it as the only OS on your machine it will remove GRUB in the process.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 02:39

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

Cyne posted:

Just go ahead and install Windows 7 - if you install it as the only OS on your machine it will remove GRUB in the process.

Thats what I'm looking for, thanks.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 02:42

Smegmatron: Apr 23, 2003; I hate to advocate emptyquoting or shitposting to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Is there any way to use a bash script to ping a device and execute an action based on whether or not the host responds to ping?

# ? Apr 20, 2009 04:46

ShoulderDaemon: Oct 9, 2003; support goon fund; Taco Defender

Smegmatron posted:

Is there any way to use a bash script to ping a device and execute an action based on whether or not the host responds to ping?

code:

if ping -c 3 host.to.ping > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "host is up"
else
  echo "host is down"
fi

# ? Apr 20, 2009 05:06

polka: May 10, 2007; Going up!

I just installed Linux for the first time a few days ago.

This is not terribly important but on distrowatch.com, Ubuntu 8.10 is listed as having programs such as vim 7.1 installed. The package manager tells me they're not installed. What gives? I think everything was installed with the default initial packages.

Also, is having a fast 10-finger typing a prerequisite to using vim or emacs? I'm I not worthy if I only type with 4 or 6 fingers and 40WPM?

# ? Apr 20, 2009 16:43

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

Subedei posted:

I just installed Linux for the first time a few days ago.

This is not terribly important but on distrowatch.com, Ubuntu 8.10 is listed as having programs such as vim 7.1 installed. The package manager tells me they're not installed. What gives? I think everything was installed with the default initial packages.

Also, is having a fast 10-finger typing a prerequisite to using vim or emacs? I'm I not worthy if I only type with 4 or 6 fingers and 40WPM?

I believe most distros only pre-install vi and not Vim.

Emacs + Vim: Since the only way of interacting with these programs is through the keyboard, it will prove to be benificial for your typing skills. And probably more frustrating in the beginning. I'm not a coder but use Vim for writing, to-do lists, memos, etc. Expect a steep learning curve. I would suggest subscribing to the Vim_user mailing-list for questions and general help.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 17:01

JHVH-1: Jun 28, 2002

MargotK posted:

I believe most distros only pre-install vi and not Vim.

Emacs + Vim: Since the only way of interacting with these programs is through the keyboard, it will prove to be benificial for your typing skills. And probably more frustrating in the beginning. I'm not a coder but use Vim for writing, to-do lists, memos, etc. Expect a steep learning curve. I would suggest subscribing to the Vim_user mailing-list for questions and general help.

I think its common to install vim by default and symlink it to vi. So if you run vi it just runs vim.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 17:09

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

JHVH-1 posted:

I think its common to install vim by default and symlink it to vi. So if you run vi it just runs vim.

quote:

"NOTE: As of Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), the default Vim install is a cut-down version called "vim-tiny". In order to get the full version complete with the online help documentation, and many of the advanced functions such as code folding; you will need to install "vim-full"

But I agree, once you've installed it, the symlink is made.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 17:30

polka: May 10, 2007; Going up!

Thanks. I've been reading about Vim and emacs lately and there's something crazy in me that wants to learn them, especially Vim, if for no other reason than the geekiness factor. They just seem badass. Their logos are kinda lovely though.

# ? Apr 20, 2009 17:34

Twlight: Feb 18, 2005; I brag about getting free drinks from my boss to make myself feel superior; Fun Shoe

I've started on the journey to automate many of the server builds at work using kickstart. However before I do this I want to create some custom RPM files so I can automatically build needed packages.

I've created an rpm file using the rpmbuild command, however I'm a bit confused as to where I can add my custom configuration files into the spec file. I know there is a %config macro but I'm unsure as to where I should put the configuration files for building.

Here is my kickstart file

code:

Summary: A program that controls configuration files remotly
Name: cfengine
Version: 2.2.8
Release: 5
License: GPL
Group: System Environment/Base
Source: cfengine-2.2.8.tar.gz

%description
This program is a core program used on the calumet network. it
allows each linux system to have a fresh set of configuration
files delivered daily, or when a change needs to be made.

%prep
%setup -q

%build
./configure
make

%install
make install

%files
%defattr(-,root,root)
%config /var/cfengine/inputs/cfagent.conf
%config /var/cfengine/inputs/update.conf
%config /var/cfengine/inputs/cf.groups
%config /var/cfengine/inputs/cfservd.conf
%config /var/cfengine/inputs/cfrun.hosts

As you can see at the bottom I've created 5 different config values, the locations above are where I'd like the files to sit after installation. I hope this made some sort of sense : )

# ? Apr 20, 2009 20:29

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 03:17

Onken: Feb 12, 2003; ouch my knee

Hey I just upgraded to KDE4, what should I stick in ~/.xinitrc to launch on "startx"?

"exec startkde" used to work on KDE 3.5 but no joy now. Any ideas?

Onken fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Apr 22, 2009

# ? Apr 22, 2009 02:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

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