From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:41033 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751534AbbDCIwM (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Apr 2015 04:52:12 -0400 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2015 10:52:03 +0200 From: Karel Zak To: Ruediger Meier , util-linux@vger.kernel.org, Isaac Dunham Subject: Re: question about hardcoded binary paths (swapon / mkswap) Message-ID: <20150403085203.GA3923@ws.net.home> References: <201504011342.56546.sweet_f_a@gmx.de> <201504011817.48428.sweet_f_a@gmx.de> <20150401201051.GP25224@vapier> <201504012306.52737.sweet_f_a@gmx.de> <20150401213800.GB2097@ws.net.home> <20150402011230.GA22171@vapier> <20150402082000.GC2097@ws.net.home> <20150402161952.GB22171@vapier> <20150402191530.GG2097@ws.net.home> <20150403011522.GH22171@vapier> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20150403011522.GH22171@vapier> Sender: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 09:15:22PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote: > On 02 Apr 2015 21:15, Karel Zak wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 12:19:52PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote: > > > On 02 Apr 2015 10:20, Karel Zak wrote: > > > > If I good remember then the reason is that the helpers does not have > > > > to be installed in standard PATH. Well, you're author of this thing > > > > :-) > > > > > > i wrote the code to make it a configure option, but the actual behavior predates > > > me. i'm interested more in the behavior, not the exact configure option. > > > > So, the basis question is if we really need to support non-standard > > paths for the helpers. IMHO it's unnecessary legacy and I don't see a > > problem to drop this feature and require $PATH, and for critical > > things like fsck fallback to /sbin if $PATH is undefined. > > the reason for adding that configure option was to support packages that install > both into /bin and /usr/bin. i understand some distros will override those I have talked about crazy things like /sbin/fs.d or /sbin/fs. The standard paths like [/usr]/bin, [/usr]/sbin are not problem. > settings of upstream packages, but Gentoo has opted not to since there's no > reason at all to force them all into /sbin (and even existing tools in /sbin are > pretty pointless). although it mattered more when the code was only searching > that list and not $PATH at all. > > my preference would be just to do execvp() and be done so we can stop these > distro bikesheddings (/bin & /usr-merge and such). Yes, I thought about it too... just move the problem with PATH to libc ;-) For example mkfs already uses execvp(), I guess we can do the same in fsck. For mount(8) it would be better to follow the current behaviour, but remove nonsenses from FS_SEARCH_PATH (and rename to LIBMOUNT_HELPERS_PATH). Volunteers? ;-) Karel -- Karel Zak http://karelzak.blogspot.com