Re: [opensuse] Compiling the Suse way

Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> Dave Howorth writes:
>> Andreas Jaeger wrote:
>>> Philipp Thomas writes:
>>>> Checkinstall has been dropped from openSUSE because it doesn't work
>>>> anymore. Checkinstall's trick is to load a library via LD_PRELOAD that
>>>> redirects all functions dealing with files. Now for installing a package
>>>> you need to be root and for programs running with root privileges the
>>>> dynamic loader ignores LD_PRELOAD as this would otherwise be a huge
>>>> security problem.
>>> The behaviour is: For programs being setuid root, LD_PRELOAD is ignored
>>> - or more exactly:
>>>       /* The LD_PRELOAD environment variable gives list of libraries
>>>          separated by white space or colons that are loaded before the
>>>          executable's dependencies and prepended to the global scope
>>>          list.  If the binary is running setuid all elements
>>>          containing a '/' are ignored since it is insecure.  */
>> Reading this makes me confused. Am I right in thinking that LD_PRELOAD
>> still works and in particular the checkinstall application of it would
>> still work if either:
>>
>> * the checkinstall is run by root directly and the executable is *not*
>> setuid?
> 
> Correct.

Looking at the checkinstall site, it seems the program is normally run
as root anyway - as Philipp also implies - so I'm still confused as to
why it has stopped working and therefore been removed?

>> * or, the special library that checkinstall loads is given using a
>> relative path rather than an absolute one?
> 
> No, the library needs to be in a system path, e.g. /usr/lib and
> LD_PRELOAD contains only the name -  not a single slash - in it.

Ah, OK. Now I see I misread your original statement. You wrote
'containing a /' but I saw 'starting with a /' :(  Sorry.

>> Either of these seems like a very simple way to make checkinstall work,
>> so I suspect I'm misunderstanding something one of you has said :(
> 
> Note that I have no clue about checkinstall,

Nor me :)

> Andreas

Thanks, Dave

PS I don't need a personal copy of your replies.
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