Re: New SELinux toolchain build system

[Joshua Brindle <method@manicmethod.com>]

Vikram Ambrose wrote:
> Attached to this email is a tarball snapshot of a new build system
> for the SELinux toolchain that I have been working on for the last
> couple of months.
> 
> This autoconf/automake build system has many advantages over the
> current Makefiles.
> 
> 1) It is capable of correctly cross compiling all libraries and
>  tools, including the python wrappers.
> 2) It allows the distro maintainer to set sysconfdir, prefix,
>  pamdir, startupdir etc..
> 3) It employs no "hacks", it is to-the-book, clean, GNU Automake,
>  Autoconf code, formatted to ~80 char line length.
> 4) It lets RPM spec and .deb control take advantage of the autoconf
>  infrastructure already built into these package formats, allowing
>  distro maintainers to quickly and effortlessly build distro
>  packages.
> 5) It is completely self dependent, ie. one can build the complete
>  toolchain now resolving dependencies within the build, without
>  needing to link against a system wide library.
> 
> Due to an incompatibility with libtool, related to the current
> naming convention of the python wrappers and classes, a patch is
> supplied to rename:
>  *) _selinux.so to libpyselinux.so
>  *) _semanage.so to libpysemanage.so
>  *) _audit2why.so to libpyaudit2why.so
> 
> Similarily, the update also renames:
>  *) selinux.py to __init__.py
>  *) semanage.py to __init__.py
> and installs these plugins into their own sub site-packages folder.
> 
> For Example: libselinux/src/Makefile.am
> line 35 # When the upstream tree is patched this should be removed
> line 36 # and selinux.py must be renamed to __init__.py
> line 37 __init__.py : selinux.py
> line 38        cp selinux.py $@
> 
> A similar measure is taken in libsemanage/src/Makefile.am for semanage.py.
> 
> On a similar note, the code currently uses a macro called SHARED,
> which is currently being wrapped with a forced -include libtool_compat.h
> using -DPIC (a libtool defined macro). This too can be removed if the code
> can be reformatted.
> 
> This build system has been thoroughly tested to function correctly.
> Compiling natively for localhost, as well as cross compiling for
> the following platforms:
>  *) PPC32
>  *) PPC64
>  *) ARM (Versatile family)
>  *) Common PC X86_64
> 
> It has also been tested on mainstream Linux distributions such
> as Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9.
> 
> This new build system is a replacement for the existing build system.
> They cannot be used concurrently. I leave no guarantee on backward
> compatibility after applying this update.
> 
> Recently a Ruby wrapper was added to the SELinux trunk, this build
> system does not build it. Though with the current infrastructure in
> place, it is a very simple procedure for anyone familiar with ruby
> to include it.
> 
> This contribution comes out of the integration efforts WindRiver has
> recently taken to add a SELinux feature to WindRiver Linux. It comes
> with no obligation or indemnity from WindRiver or myself. Distributed
> as not copyrighted, public domain software, in accordance with
> libselinux.
> 
> I ask if this update can be merged into the main SELinux trunk.
> I will help coordinate the merge if necessary.
> 

I've just started looking at this. We need to be sure that it covers current make targets like make swigify which generate the c wrappers from swig interface files (we run this before checkins). Also make test needs to work.

Also there is no top level ./configure so this won't let you build the entire repo. I'd like something (even if it was just the makefile that ran ./configure in each dir.

I also get a failure:
[root@misterfreeze libsepol]# autoreconf -iv
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal 
autoreconf: configure.ac: tracing
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Libtool
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoheader
autoreconf: running: automake --add-missing --copy --no-force
configure.ac:17: installing `./compile'
configure.ac:6: installing `./install-sh'
configure.ac:6: installing `./missing'
include/Makefile.am:2: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:5: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:8: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:9: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:11: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:14: whitespace following trailing backslash
include/Makefile.am:20: whitespace following trailing backslash
src/Makefile.am:10: Libtool library used but `LIBTOOL' is undefined
src/Makefile.am:10:   The usual way to define `LIBTOOL' is to add `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL'
src/Makefile.am:10:   to `configure.ac' and run `aclocal' and `autoconf' again.
src/Makefile.am:10:   If `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL' is in `configure.ac', make sure
src/Makefile.am:10:   its definition is in aclocal's search path.
src/Makefile.am: installing `./depcomp'
Makefile.am: installing `./INSTALL'
Makefile.am: required file `./NEWS' not found
Makefile.am: required file `./README' not found
Makefile.am: required file `./AUTHORS' not found
autoreconf: automake failed with exit status: 1



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