Curious issue with -b output when building Samba master branch

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Wed, 2015-02-04 at 15:47 -0800, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Richard Sharpe
> <realrichardsharpe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > when I run my own configure.xxx script that passes essentially what
> > RedHat passes to configure on a Samba 4.1.x build, I see the following
> > in the configure log,
> >
> > Dynconfig[SOCKET_DIR]:
> >            : '/var/run'
> > Dynconfig[MODULESDIR]:
> >            : '/usr/lib64/samba'
> > Dynconfig[WINBINDD_PRIVILEGED_SOCKET_DIR]:
> >            : '/var/lib/samba/winbindd_privileged'
> >
> > but MODULESDIR is different when I run smbd -b:
> >
> >    LMHOSTSFILE: /etc/samba/lmhosts
> >    LIBDIR: /usr/lib
> >    MODULESDIR: /home/rsharpe/somedir/samba/bin/modules
> >    SHLIBEXT: so
> >    LOCKDIR: /var/lib/samba
> >
> > Why is this? How can I force the binary to have the correct thing
> > because I want to be able to copy these binaries to the correct place
> > on a remote node and have things work correctly.
> 
> OK, I think I have found the source of this disturbing behavior. In
> dynconfig/wscript I see this little snippet of code:
> 
> def get_override(bld):
>     override = { 'MODULESDIR'    : 'bin/modules',
>                  'PYTHONDIR'     : 'bin/python',
>                  'PYTHONARCHDIR' : 'bin/python',
>                  'BINDIR'        : 'bin',
>                  'SBINDIR'       : 'bin',
>                  'CODEPAGEDIR'   : 'codepages',
>                  'SCRIPTSBINDIR' : 'source4/scripting/bin',
>                  'SETUPDIR'      : 'source4/setup'
>                  }
>     return override
> 
> def dynconfig_cflags(bld, list=None):
>     '''work out the extra CFLAGS for dynconfig.c'''
>     cflags = []
>     for varname in dynconfig.keys():
>         if list and not varname in list:
>             continue
>         value = bld.env[varname]
>         if not Options.is_install:
>             override = get_override(bld)
>             if varname in override:
>                 value = os.path.join(bld.env.srcdir, override[varname])
>         cflags.append('-D%s="%s"' % (varname, value))
>     return cflags
> 
> Which would seem to be overriding a bunch of things if you are not
> doing a make install.
> 
> Can anyone explain to me the reason for this?

This is so that when we run 'make test', the in-tree binaries are used,
so you don't have to be root and run 'make install' first, and so you
always test the code you just built.

> In the environment I am working in I have a bunch of people who want
> to have reasonable turn-around for changes and will want to copy the
> just built binary to a set of other machines.

Given Samba is no longer has a static smbd, copying the
just-built-binary is going to give much pain - almost none of the file
server is in smbd for example (look how tiny that is these days). 

> Having to go through an rpmbuild or a make install just to get one
> changed binary is an enormous pain.

Picking the wrong changed binary is also going to be an even more
enormous pain. 

> Is there some other way rather than hacking out that piece of code?

They should do a make install, using DESTDIR=/tmp/my-prefix trick that
our packages use to avoid needing to install as root.  That way an rsync
of the whole install tree (which is what I would suggest you really
want) will be possible. 

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                       http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team  http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Catalyst IT          http://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba