[aur-general] Package proprietary softwares with hard-coded paths within /usr/local?

[Chi-Hsuan Yen]

On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 2:35 AM, Eli Schwartz <eschwartz at archlinux.org> wrote:
> On 08/06/2017 08:21 AM, Chi-Hsuan Yen via aur-general wrote:
>> Hello Arch enthusiasts,
>>
>> I'd like to create a package for Pulse Connect Secure, a popular VPN
>> software. Current PKGBUILD can be found at [1]. That package works
>> fine, but it conflicts with Arch's packaging guideline. [2]
>>
>> "Packages should never be installed to /usr/local"
>>
>> The reason I put files in /usr/local is that file paths are apparently
>> hard-coded. Specifically, the VPN frontend (pulseUi) loads assets from
>> /usr/local/pulse/html, and then it invokes /usr/local/pulse/pulsesvc
>> to actually connects to VPN.
>>
>> Is there a workaround for this?
>
> Not much you can do with software which encodes violations of packaging
> guidelines in its proprietary binaries. Depending on where the
> information is stored, you might be able to patch it...
>
> /usr/local/pulse *gags*
>
> If software insists on being installed to
> "/completely/arbitrary/directory" then you either package it anyway or
> you don't. But I suppose you could try asking them to install it in /opt
> instead.
>
> --
> Eli Schwartz
>

Aha, didn't think of patching. That simple "fix" works! Many thanks!
The key is that the path before and after should have the same length.
[1]

Best,

Yen Chi Hsuan

[1] https://github.com/yan12125/aur/commit/0588f70772fae8bd84f87e56015bdc87a6729d90#diff-62ac6814f4207a45189d3491ca4e38f3R28