[pacman-dev] RootDir using symlinks -> problem

[Aaron Griffin]

On 10/9/07, Xavier <shiningxc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan and Aaron apparently discussed that on IRC.
> I am still a bit confused though..
>
> Apparently, Dan is for flexibility, so having the possibility to have the
> dbpath outside rootdir. And so, in this case, my patch should probably be
> applied. Unless there are many other hidden dependencies, where the code
> assumes that dbpath (or others) are under rootdir?
>
> On the other hand, Aaron said having the possibility to have DBPath outside
> RootDir is useless, and that it doesn't make sense.
> The final proposal is apparently just issuing a warning when the DB dir is
> outside the rootdir.

Well. See, what I'm saying has nothing to do with code, using realpath() or not.

I'm saying that the following doesn't make sense:
* install the gnome group to /home/me/chroot/gnome/ (as the root dir)
* save the gnome DB entries in /var/lib/pacman/local

So now it looks like I have gnome installed... but i don't. And lots
of things will crash. Admittedly, it's my fault, but still, this
shouldn't be allowed.

It's like pacman is pretending it installed something.

Our compromise, however, isn't much of one - we're going with you and
Dan on this - allow dbpath outside of the rootdir - but the warning is
to make me feel better about it.

> I am not sure if I really like this, I would prefer choosing one way or the other,
> instead of having something unstable in the middle.
> So either deciding that all paths should be independent, and trying to
> implement this in pacman, or deciding that all paths should be relative to RootDir,
> and enforce this in pacman (which was already done in 3.0, wasn't it?)

Like I said, the ultimate code will be what you guys are going for -
independent paths and all that. The warning is to sate me.

It's not something in the middle, like you suggested.