fix the way plugin symlinks are handled in profile examples

[jrollins]

or make a way to copy them out into a build directory cleanly

[dkg]

I'm unclear what this ticket means, exactly. Can you give a concrete instance of what's going wrong?

[jrollins]

I don't like the way that the Debian packaging makes the plugins in the example profile plugin directories relative symlinks instead of absolute symlinks. It makes it difficult to copy the profile directories out for use. I would like to find a way to force the symlinks to be absolute. Maybe this can be done with a postinst script.

[dkg]

We could make the links explicitly in debian/rules instead of using dh_link. There's no need for a postinst script. But isn't the question more about whether that's compliant with policy? Have you located the part of policy that's relevant to the types of links?

[jrollins]

Lintian confirms that the absolute links are not compliant with policy, as it produces errors about the absolute links in the current package.

The problem is that I think it's really important that these links be absolute, or that we figure how a really simple way to build an example profile with proper links to the shared plugin dir. whatever the justification for the policy is, i can't imagine that it's really valid in this circumstance. that is neither here nor there, though, since i have no intention of deliberatly going against debian policy, since eventually i want to see this package downstream.

Maybe the right thing to do is to add a function to make-debirf that will create an example profile directory for you, with absolute links.

[dkg]

Replying to jrollins:

Lintian confirms that the absolute links are not compliant with policy, as it produces errors about the absolute links in the current package.

What errors? including the exact errors (and a link to policy) would make these notes more useful.

or that we figure how a really simple way to build an example profile with proper links to the shared plugin dir.

What have you tried so far?

[jrollins]

servo:0:~/cmrg/svn/trunk/debirf> ./build-pkg 
A    build/debirf-0.6
...
dpkg-buildpackage (debuild emulation): full upload; Debian-native package (full source is included)
Now running lintian...
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/a0_motd /usr/share/debirf/plugins/a0_motd
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/a0_prep-root /usr/share/debirf/plugins/a0_prep-root
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/bootlog /usr/share/debirf/plugins/bootlog
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/hostname /usr/share/debirf/plugins/hostname
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/install-kernel /usr/share/debirf/plugins/install-kernel
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/root-bashrc /usr/share/debirf/plugins/root-bashrc
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/serial-terminal /usr/share/debirf/plugins/serial-terminal
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/xkiosk /usr/share/debirf/plugins/xkiosk
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/z0_remove-locales /usr/share/debirf/plugins/z0_remove-locales
E: debirf: symlink-should-be-relative usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles/xkiosk/plugins/z1_clean-root /usr/share/debirf/plugins/z1_clean-root
Finished running lintian.
servo:0:~/cmrg/svn/trunk/debirf>

I have not had a chance to try any alternate methods yet.

[dkg]

Here's ​a link to the relevant policy.

[dkg]

Increasing the priority of this ticket, since 0.7 is now published, and it includes absolute symlinks in violation of policy.

[jrollins]

so the solution here is to include .tgz of the example profiles in /usr/share/doc/debirf/example-profiles. this is a good solution, and implemented in 0.13-1.