Hey all-

The short story:

install seems to be invoking make. why should it do this? and how can I stop it?

The longer story:

I'm trying to install the lzo-2.02 compression libraries (although this has happened to me with some other packages as well). They build just fine, but I run into problems when I run "make install".

make seems to get stuck in a recursive loop. It will enter a directory to install some files, and then it will spawn another level of make and reenter the same directory. I've scattered various bits of debugging statements through the offending target of the makefile and I have determined that executing the following is causing the recursion:

$(pkgincludeHEADERS_INSTALL) "$$d$$p" "$(DESTDIR)$(pkgincludedir)/$$f

filling in the variables this becomes:
/usr/bin/ginstall -c -m 644 "lzoconf.h" /usr/local/include/lzo/lzoconf.h

(note that on my system ginstall is just a symlink to install)
So, I tried running this command from the command line instead of running "make install". The result is make going into the same recursive loop. Why on earth should "install" be invoking make??

From the man page of install it looks like this programs is supposed to essentially be a shortcut for copying a file and then resetting the permissions of that file. If I replace the offending statement in the makefile with the following things work fine, or at least for that target!

cp "$$d$$p" "$(DESTDIR)$(pkgincludedir)/$$f"
chmod 644 "$(DESTDIR)$(pkgincludedir)/$$f"

which works out to be:

cp "lzoconf.h" "/usr/local/include/lzo/lzoconf.h"
chmod 644 "/usr/local/include/lzo/lzoconf.h"


Of course, now that part installs just fine, but the next install target runs into the same problem! I really don't want to have to make this change to every makefile, and I've had this same problem with other packages as well.

Anyone have any ideas?

--Chad

What do you get when you type 'make --version' and 'install --version'?

What is ginstall?

What is your $PATH for the user that runs these commands?

What is the output of 'which make' and 'which install'?

--- rod.

$ make --version
GNU Make 3.80
Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

$ install --version
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.

This is indeed a bizare result... if I go to /usr/bin and run "./install --version" I get:

$ ./install --version
GNUmakefile:36: /usr/include/make/commondefs: No such file or directory
GNUmakefile:74: no file name for `include'
make: *** No rule to make target `/usr/include/make/commondefs'. Stop.

As far as I can tell, it's exactly the same as "install". I do notice this when I run ./configure:

checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/ginstall -c

also,

$ ls -l /usr/bin | grep ginstall
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2006-08-03 19:08 ginstall -> install*

and just to be sure,

$ ls -l /usr/bin | grep install
...
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2006-08-03 19:08 ginstall -> install*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 503 503 24 2002-02-14 19:33 install*
...


Since I need to be root to install...
"cparker" is the user that is currently logged on.

$ which make
/usr/bin/make

$ which install
/usr/bin/install

Any ideas?

This is bad. This file is owned by a user and group that does not even exist, and the filesize is WAY too small. The information near your name says that your distribution is Slackware 10.2. Is this the distribution that you are using exhibiting this problem?

I also use Slackware 10.2, and install works for me:
It looks like your install program may be a script. Perhaps it invokes make?

See if install is indeed an ELF executable on your system with
If it isn't, check its contents.

Sure is.

Ya know, I noticed this and I figured that it was just a default system user/group that didn't have an identifier. I suppose that was a bad assumption to make... I wonder how many other executables have this tag... I'll have to check that and correct it!

Wow, I can't believe I didn't think to do that! Good call! Okay so it turns out that ...

$ file /usr/bin/install
/usr/bin/install: Bourne shell script text executable

ah ha!

and the contents:

$ cat /usr/bin/install
#! /bin/sh
make install

Well, that's certainly the problem then! I wonder how this even happened? So, now here's a new question: to correct this, do I need to completely reinstall coreutils? I've noticed that there are some other "install" scripts in /usr/bin...

$ ls /usr/bin | grep install
Xinstall.sh*
aminstall.sh*
floppyd_installtest*
ginstall@
install*
install-catalog*
install-datebook*
install-expenses*
install-hinote*
install-info*
install-memo*
install-netsync*
install-sh*
install-todo*
install-todos*
install-user*
install.sh*
install.sv3*
install.sv4*
installbin.sh*
installdat.sh*
installdirs.sh*
installman.sh*
installmodules.sh*
installscripts.sh*
installswat.sh*
minstall.sh*
mkinstalldirs*
mysql_install_db*
mysql_secure_installation*
pinegpg-install@
pinepgpgpg-install*
sinstall.sh*
uninstallbin.sh*
uninstallman.sh*
uninstallmodules.sh*
uninstallscripts.sh*

some of these look promising... for example,

$ head install.sh
#! /bin/sh
#
# install - install a program, script, or datafile
# This comes from X11R5.
#
# Calling this script install-sh is preferred over install.sh, to prevent
# `make' implicit rules from creating a file called install from it
# when there is no Makefile.
#
# This script is compatible with the BSD install script, but was written

Should /usr/bin/install be a symlink to /usr/bin/install.sh? or is install supposed to actually be an ELF executable?


--Chad

/usr/bin/install should be an ELF executable, not a link of any sort - it's installed by coreutils and is about 48K in size.

You have many files in /usr/bin that aren't installed by Slackware. I chose to install every single package when Slackware was first installed on the computer I am using right now. I compared the listing of filenames with the word "install" on my machine to the one you posted (I copied your listing and pasted it into a file called filelist):
The files listed are files which you have that I do not.

I don't know where your extra files are coming from, but it looks like something simply overwrote the legitimate install program.

Reinstalling the coreutils package would fix the install problem, but I'm still curious about what overwrote it in the first place.