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

[KY Chou]

That's a great solution!
But it doesn't have to be the same length actually.
A shorter path with padded 0x00s should also work fine.

On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 3:16 AM, Chi-Hsuan Yen via aur-general <
aur-general at archlinux.org> wrote:

> 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/0588f70772fae8bd84f87e56015bdc
> 87a6729d90#diff-62ac6814f4207a45189d3491ca4e38f3R28
>