Newbish question on compiling software for a production server

jmille34 · 11-06-2006, 10:04 AM

It seems a lot of packages need to be compiled (postgres and postfix are my current two) which means the compilers need to be installed, but is this bad practice for a production server to leave the compilers in place? Wouldn't it be preferable to have the system be as clean and bare as possible? I would prefer not to install them in the first place so that I don't have to trust myself to remove them later or to remove them correctly..

Aside from switching from Slackware to something a little more package-y, what is the SOP for handling this?

josenj · 11-06-2006, 11:26 AM

Options:

1) If you have a test machine (everything is the same as far as the production server is concern) then you can leave the compiler in the test machine and compile your stuff there then transer them over to your production machine. You can do the "./configure", "make" steps then tar up your folder, transfer it to the production server and then do the "make install" there. Then remove the tar and the untarred folder once your done.

2) You can put the compiler on the production machine and change permissions on the compiler. So that only you can compile stuff. Create a group for yourself and make sure you do remove permission for the "world". Something like chmod 750 xxxxx.

3) If you are using a distro just use the packages.

Good luck!

matthewg42 · 11-06-2006, 11:56 AM

If you're on a debian based distro and the project you are building uses the GNU build system (autoconf and friends), you can build on a separate machine and use the checkinstall script to generate a .deb package which can then be installed on the production server. make sure you compile appropriate options to strip out debugging symbols and so on, as required.

josenj · 11-06-2006, 12:18 PM

matthewg42 has brought up another good option. The checkinstall script can create slackware, rpm or deb packages. *.deb is the default.

So instead of typing "make install" you would just type "checkinstall" and it creates your package.

If you go this route and install "checkinstall" you can run checkinstall -h for options.

Checkinstall's website: http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/