Bug#858860: RFS: arpwatch [ITA]

[Christian Seiler]

On 04/05/2017 07:02 PM, Lukas Schwaighofer wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 18:25:04 +0200
> Hugo Lefeuvre <hle at debian.org> wrote:
>>> If I remove `usr/sbin` from dirs, buildpackage fails complaining
>>> that the directory does not exist (so something in the build system
>>> is slightly broken).  
>>
>> The error message is
>>
>> /usr/bin/install -c -m 555 -o bin -g bin
>> arpwatch /build/arpwatch-2.1a15/debian/arpwatch/usr/sbin /usr/bin/install:
>> cannot create regular file
>> '/build/arpwatch-2.1a15/debian/arpwatch/usr/sbin': No such file or
>> directory Makefile:114: recipe for target 'install' failed 
>>
>> looks like the Makefile installs files under usr/sbin, but doesn't
>> create the directory if it doesn't exist. This is rather a Makefile
>> bug.
> 
> With "build system" I meant this process of autotools creating the
> Makefile, and `make install` doing something slightly wrong.  Anyway,
> that means keeping `usr/sbin` in the dirs file is the correct "fix",
> right?

The problem is that dirs is only interpreted by dh_installdirs, which
is typically run after dh_auto_install, so that wouldn't actually
solve your problem.

You should probably just patch the build system to create the install
directory if it doesn't exist. (Maybe just use install -D to copy the
file, that will auto-create the directories leading up to the target.)

Regards,
Christian