[Nagiosplug-devel] RPM/Debian packaging

[Dag Wieers]

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Subhendu Ghosh wrote:

> I am looking at the issues packagers are having with the plugins distribution.
> 
> I would like to see what we can do to resolve them.  Can package maintainers
> provide some comments and feedback on the direction we should be heading?

Package the nagios-plugins package is hard for various reasons.

 + It requires a lot of development stuff to be available during the 
   build. A lot of these requirements however should not be part of the 
   target system. (And vice-versa, not all the requirements that are 
   necessary on the target system are essentially needed on the 
   buildsystem)

 + The configure script does not understand the distinction between the 
   build-system and the target system. For example, it assumes in certain 
   places that the system we're creating the package is the target system.

 
> I am open to generating multiple binary RPMs from the single src.rpm

Well, I'm not sure if that would improve the situation. It's hardly an 
option to create 1 RPM package per plugin. Nor is it a good idea to put 
_all_ requirements into the single nagios-plugins RPM package.

I know what we're doing currently is not the best way. But it's the most 
practical way for people to install the nagios-plugins. Even if it means 
they have to select and install the requirements themselves that certain 
plugins need.

Apart from improving the build/install system (which I think we really 
ought to do) the resulting package, for practical reasons, will most 
likely be identical to what I currently provide.

But I'm open to discuss :)

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]