Re: [PATCH iproute2] Revert "Makefile: ensure CONF_USR_DIR honours the libdir config"

[Andrea Claudi <aclaudi@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 02:54:16PM +0100, Petr Machata wrote:
> 
> Petr Machata <petrm@nvidia.com> writes:
> 
> > luca.boccassi@gmail.com writes:
> >
> >> From: Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org>
> >>
> >> LIBDIR in Debian and derivatives is not /usr/lib/, it's
> >> /usr/lib/<architecture triplet>/, which is different, and it's the
> >> wrong location where to install architecture-independent default
> >> configuration files, which should always go to /usr/lib/ instead.
> >> Installing these files to the per-architecture directory is not
> >> the right thing, hence revert the change.
> >
> > So I looked into the Fedora package. Up until recently, the files were
> > in /etc, but it seems there was a deliberate change in the spec file
> > this September that moved them to /usr/lib or /usr/lib64.
> >
> > Luca -- since you both sent the patch under reversion, and are Fedora
> 
> Ugh, I mean Andrea, not Luca. Sorry!
> 
> > maintainer, could you please elaborate on what the logic was behind it?
> > It does look odd to me to put config files into an arch-dependent
> > directory, but I've been out of packaging for close to a decade at this
> > point.

Hi Petr,
the change in Fedora iproute package is in response to 0a0a8f12fa1b
("Read configuration files from /etc and /usr"): it moves config files
from /etc to /usr to make room for customization using /etc/iproute2, as
described over there.

What I tried to achieve with my patch is to have a single location in
/usr for iproute files; but I agree with both you and Luca that storing
config files in an arch-dependent directory doesn't look right.

However, even using /usr/lib doesn't seems quite right to me. According
to the FHS [1]:

"/usr/lib includes object files and libraries. On some systems, it may
also include internal binaries that are not intended to be executed
directly by users or shell scripts."

A better location is probably /usr/share [2]:

"The /usr/share hierarchy is for all read-only architecture independent
data files. 
This hierarchy is intended to be shareable among all architecture
platforms of a given OS; thus, for example, a site with i386, Alpha, and
PPC platforms might maintain a single /usr/share directory that is
centrally-mounted."

And this is exactly our case: read-only, shareable, config files that
can be overridden using /etc/iproute2.

Luca, does something along the lines below work for you? If so, I can
test and send a patch fixing my own stuff.

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5c559c8d..ec57bd4c 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -16,11 +16,11 @@ endif

 PREFIX?=/usr
 SBINDIR?=/sbin
+DATADIR?=$(PREFIX)/share
 CONF_ETC_DIR?=/etc/iproute2
-CONF_USR_DIR?=$(LIBDIR)/iproute2
+CONF_USR_DIR?=$(DATADIR)/iproute2
 NETNS_RUN_DIR?=/var/run/netns
 NETNS_ETC_DIR?=/etc/netns
-DATADIR?=$(PREFIX)/share
 HDRDIR?=$(PREFIX)/include/iproute2
 DOCDIR?=$(DATADIR)/doc/iproute2
 MANDIR?=$(DATADIR)/man

[1] https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s06.html
[2] https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s11.html