perfsonar development work

[Gijs Molenaar <>]

Jochen Reinwand wrote:
> Hi Gijs,
>
> sorry to say that, but you are really wrong.
> What you describe is only applicable for /usr/local and even there it is 
> not 
> really strictly forbidden to install software the way perfsonar is doing it.
>
> LSB is not really saying much about /opt and filesystem hierarchy at all.
> See one interesting part here: 
>   

Implicitly it does.

http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/execenvfhs.html
> http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/execstuff.html
> 17.1.8. Installable applications What you can read here implies that the 
> perfSONAR usage of /opt is OK.
>
> But why not take a look at the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) that is 
> really responsible for the filesystem hierarchy of a Unix based 
> distribution 
> that is also referenced by the LSB. Here is the /opt part:
>
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#OPTADDONAPPLICATIONSOFTWAREPACKAGES
>   

You are right.
> Looks like the way perfSONAR installs is basically OK, but we can do some 
> tuning here...
> One big problem is, that the Java part of perfSONAR is a web service and 
> not 
> really a normal application. LSB and FHS cannot easily be applied here.
>
> The rules you are referring to are most likely Debian specific and AFAIK 
> only 
> of interest if you want to get your package included in the Debian 
> distribution. Because then you create a "system packages" and these 
> packages 
> are indeed not allowed to put something in /opt. Just as LSB and FHS imply.
>
>   
Well, not really system packages, just correct packages. The idea of
packaging is that your software is integrated into your distribution and
the management of the files is done by the package manager.

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html#s9.1

Darn, I can't find anything about /opt, only about /usr/local and this
isn't allowed.

Ok I misquoted the LSB, but I remember that somewhere is defined that
using /opt is a bad idea, can't find where. In pactice it isn't used in
packages, so I don't see why perfSONAR should use it. People wouldn't
expect stuff to be installed in /usr/local or /opt when a package is used.


-- 
Gijs Molenaar
http://gijs.pythonic.nl

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