Re: Samba (3.x) getting rid of Perl

[tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost]

On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 09:49:55AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost writes:
> 
> > Even if creating such an utility would not be seen useful, it is indeed
> > possible to replace the only Perl dependant script in Samba by a POSIX
> > bourne shell script, dropping the run dependency on Perl. (Allowing then
> > cross-compilation or even simply dropping an unneeded dependency even
> > when compiling natively).
> >
> > What is the sentiment of others about this?
> 
> I am sort of sympathetic, but I tend to think that fixing upstream
> packages is something that should be done upstream.
> 
> So if you have a portable /bin/sh script -- that runs on all systems
> pkgsrc runs on -- and you submit a bug report and patch to samba, it
> seems reasonable to then consider carrying it as a patch in pkgsrc.
> 
> 
> 
> Also, as you pursue cross, I think you're going to need a way to build
> native sometimes, and pkg_add them in, and once you do this samba is not
> so bad.
> 
> I also wonder if perl can be taught to use a native perl that it depends
> on, and how pkgsrc would cope  with native tools in a cross build like
> this, conditionally.

Taylor R Campbell has set the cross-compiling stuff so that it can
use the build tools when building not falsely requiring "native"
ones. But, AFAIK, if a run dependency is not "installed", pkgsrc
will try to build it. This is a vicious circle since Perl is not
cross-compilable the way its building framework has been designed.

Since Samba can be thought of as a "system" service in an heterogeneous
environment, it would be better if it depended on the strict necessary
(amongst what I personnally need, the third parties---pkgsrc---packages
depend on very few things almost exclusively on what is provided by
NetBSD for example---and it seems to me a good thing that developers
have taken the time to integrate X11 in the NetBSD build since it's then
cross-compilable and provide an almost complete system, cross-compilable).

For serving files, I would prefer to test NFS, but there are only
NFSv4 clients for Windows nodes and for the moment the integration
of FreeBSD' implementation of NFSv4 in NetBSD is not achieved---that's
another area where I would like to find the time to help, but I'm
already doing too many things and I'm on the edge of thrashing...

Back to the particular problem: I will try to find the slot of time to 
produce a basic POSIX sh(1) script to replace the Perl script and
will submit it upstream.

Best,
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                       http://www.sbfa.fr/
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