cd loncom/build rm -Rf HTML (or alternatively, "make clean") make HTML cd HTML (look at the index.html file with a web browser such as Netscape)General description of what happens
This is the actual make target code.
HTML:
install -d HTML
cp ../../doc/loncapafiles/*.gif HTML
perl parse.pl ../../doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html HTML > HTML/index.html
What basically happens is that specially marked-up data in the LON-CAPA
cvs repository file doc/loncapafiles.html is parsed into a more
viewable format by loncom/build/parse.pl. The resulting
file gives a very well organized view of all the files, directories,
links, ownerships, permissions, and brief documentation of what each
file does.
cd loncom/build make buildGeneral description of what happens
This is the actual make target code.
build:
perl parse.pl ../../doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html build > Makefile.build
make -f Makefile.build all
loncom/build/parse.pl reads in all the build information out
of doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html. A new Makefile named
loncom/build/Makefile.build is dynamically constructed.
This dynamically generated Makefile is then run to build/compile
all the software targets from source. This currently takes 10 minutes
(depends on the speed of the machine you compile with).
Here is information for one file tth.so provided in
doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html.
loncom/build/parse.pl sees the BUILD tags and sets up
a dynamic file Makefile.build to run the command inside the
BUILD tags (currently, DEPENDENCIES is not used for anything
besides documentation).
<METAGROUP>
<LONCAPA TYPE=LOCATION DIST="redhat6.2" SOURCE="loncom/modules/TexConvert/tthperl/tth.so" TARGET="usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/tth.so" CATEGORY="system file">
<DESCRIPTION>
shared library file for dynamic loading and unloading of TeX-to-HTML functionality
</DESCRIPTION>
<BUILD>
loncom/modules/TexConvert/tthperl/commands
</BUILD>
<DEPENDENCIES>
../tthdynamic/tthfunc.c
../ttmdynamic/ttmfunc.c
</DEPENDENCIES>
Here is an example of a dynamically generated Makefile.build
that builds two LON-CAPA files (one of which is tth.so).
all: ../homework/caparesponse/capa.so ../modules/TexConvert/tthperl/tth.so
../homework/caparesponse/capa.so: ../homework/caparesponse/caparesponse.c ../ho
mework/caparesponse/caparesponse.pm alwaysrun
cd ../homework/caparesponse/; sh ./commands
../modules/TexConvert/tthperl/tth.so: ../modules/TexConvert/tthperl/../tthdynam
ic/tthfunc.c ../modules/TexConvert/tthperl/../ttmdynamic/ttmfunc.c
cd ../modules/TexConvert/tthperl/; sh ./commands
alwaysrun:
All that you have to do to alter the behavior of the installation is edit a single file (doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html). Adding, removing, and altering files requires proper attention to the syntax of file format of course.
File FormatThe preceding "make build" documentation gives an example METAGROUP entry describing one particular file. All data within loncapafiles.html is specified according to markup tags. The format and syntax of loncapafiles.html is currently best described by the HTML documentation code at the beginning of loncapafiles.html (as well as, by example, seeing how various information is coded). All in all, the syntax is quite simple.
Philosophy and notes (the thing nobody reads)Packaging the software from CVS onto a machine file system requires many things:
I looked into, and tried, different ways of accomplishing the above including automake and recursive make. The automake system seemed quite complicated (and needlessly so in terms of this project since, by and large, it works to coordinate many different types of build/compilation parameters whereas we are more concerned with installation parameters). Recursive make has significant deficiencies in the sense that not all the information is kept in one place, and there are significant levels of dependency between all the things that must be done to keep software packaging up to date. A particularly convincing article I found when looking into much of this was "Recursive Make Considered Harmful" by Peter Miller. Complicating matters was, at the time, it was unclear as to what categories of software files we had, and whether or not the directory structure of CVS would remain constant. With an ever-developing directory structure to CVS, I preferred to organize the information on a per-file basis as opposed to a per-directory basis (although there is a successful implementation of a standard big Makefile in loncom/Makefile). Additionally, a standard big Makefile assumes certain "normalcy" to the directory structure of different potential operating system directories (RedHat vs. Debian).
If you take time to look at loncapafiles.html (and perhaps run the make HTML command) you will find that the organizing information according to the markup syntax in loncapafiles.html is simple. Simple is good.
loncom/build/parse.pl is the script (invoked automatically by the various targets in loncom/build/Makefile) that reads doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html. parse.pl is capable of reading and returning different types of information from loncapafiles.html depending on how parse.pl is invoked. parse.pl has yet to have introduced new sources of error, and has been tested in quite a number of ways. As with any parser however, I remain paranoid.
My regrets with the current system is that parse.pl is slow (can take 1 minute to run) and includes a few tidbits of code, specific to the make process, that probably should be in loncom/build/Makefile. Additionally, loncapafiles.html should have a DTD and all those other good SGML-ish things (and parsing should be done with a real SGML-derived parser).
On the plus side, the parse.pl-loncapafiles.html combination has been working very efficiently and error-free.
The current list of configurable files for the LON-CAPA system is /etc/httpd/access.conf, /etc/smb.conf, /etc/ntp.conf, /etc/krb.conf, /etc/atalk/config, /etc/ntp/step-tickers, /home/httpd/html/res/adm/includes/copyright.tab, /home/httpd/html/res/adm/includes/un_keyword.tab, /home/httpd/hosts.tab, and /home/httpd/spare.tab.
All of these configurable files contain machine-specific information. For instance, the LON-CAPA system relies on unique host IDs such as msua3, s1, s2, msul1, and 103a1 (specified as a "PerlSetVar lonHostID" field within /etc/httpd/access.conf). Non-configurable files simply do NOT have machine-specific information. The impact on updating software
What this means in terms of software updating is that
cd loncom/build make installGeneral description of what happens
This is the actual make target code.
install: build
perl parse.pl ../../doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html install > Makefil
e.install
make -f Makefile.install SOURCE="../.." TARGET="" directories
make -f Makefile.install SOURCE="../.." TARGET="" files
make -f Makefile.install SOURCE="../.." TARGET="" links
For safety reasons (so as to not mess up a machine's configuration),
configuration files are NOT installed during this step. This means
that files such as /etc/httpd/access.conf, /etc/smb.conf, /etc/atalk/config,
/home/httpd/html/res/adm/includes/copyright.tab, and
/home/httpd/spare.tab are not overwritten, but remain as old, non-updated
copies. (To automatically update these files and save/restore
their encoded machine configuration, you must run "make configinstall").
cd loncom/build make configinstallGeneral description of what happens
This is the actual make target code.
configinstall:
# there is a dependency on having directories in place, but oh well...
perl parse.pl ../../doc/loncapafiles/loncapafiles.html configinstall > Makefile.configinstall
make -f Makefile.configinstall SOURCE="../.." TARGET="" configfiles
perl loncaparestoreconfigurations lasttimestamp
make -f Makefile.configinstall TARGET="" configpermissions
Configuration files are installed during this step. This means
that files such as /etc/httpd/access.conf, /etc/smb.conf, /etc/atalk/config,
/home/httpd/html/res/adm/includes/copyright.tab, and
/home/httpd/spare.tab are overwritten. Before being overwritten,
a backup copy is made though. Information is read out of these
backup copies and restored to the new files by the
loncaparestoreconfigurations script. To ensure that
new file permissions and ownerships are installed, a final set of
chown and chmod commands are called for each of
the configuration files.
If you are truly paranoid, you can just make the Makefile.configinstall file and then save, copy, and restore all the configuration values yourself. loncaparestoreconfigurations is pretty smart though, has yet to fail, and besides, a backup copy is always made (time-stamped so that backup copies are not overwritten).
cd loncom/build rm -Rf BinaryRootL (or alternatively, "make clean") make RPM (to subsequently install, you can type commands like "rpm -Uvh --force LON-CAPA-base-3.1-1.i386.rpm")WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Never never never never never manually install the LON-CAPA-setup-3.1-1.i386.rpm. This RPM is meant to only be installed by the CD installation process (it wipes out the existing /etc/passwd file).
Configuration filesConfiguration files are automatically saved with the file suffix ".rpmsave". So /etc/httpd/conf/access.conf is saved as /etc/httpd/conf/access.conf.rpmsave. You can restore the machine-specific configuration information by running the /usr/sbin/loncaparestoreconfigurations. However, a warning is important here. If you install an RPM twice without restoring your configuration, you will overwrite the ".rpmsave" files.
General description of what happens
This is the actual make target code.
A BinaryRoot directory is generated that reflects the locations,
ownerships, permissions, and contents for all the CVS source
files, compiled binaries, directories, and links as they should eventually
occur on the '/' filesystem location.
loncom/build/make_rpm.pl is robust (tested over the span of months) and, unlike other automated RPM-builders, cleanly builds new RPMs without any after-effect of temporary files left on the system. (On the negative side, there are a number of LON-CAPA specific customizations inside make_rpm.pl which, for the sake of reusability, should eventually be removed). Two new RPMs are generated: LON-CAPA-base-3.1-1.i386 and LON-CAPA-setup-3.1-1.i386.rpm (again, never manually install LON-CAPA-setup-3.1-1.i386.rpm).