Getting things like xorg in /usr/local

K

kpedersen

Hello,

Whilst I like the idea of having Xorg as a port rather than part of the base install (like OpenBSD) would it not be a good idea to get this thing to install where other ports go?

If all ports went in /usr/local then it would be possible to create a 'portroot' account which can only write in /usr/local and thus *should* be more secure. i.e dodgy packages that get added cannot affect anything outside the ports area.

Is this a problem with the kernel modules because as far as I can tell, virtualbox-kmod also spams itself outside /usr/local as well.

It would be quite awesome if it was possible to
Code: 
rm -r -f /usr/local
And this would return the system back to a completely standard base install (minus configuration of base stuff of course)
This would be good in cases of ports / packages that don't uninstall correctly (although I have yet to run into this (other than my own :p))

Would this be a good idea or are there any problems preventing this?

Best Regards,
 
kpedersen said:
Whilst I like the idea of having Xorg as a port rather than part of the base install (like OpenBSD) would it not be a good idea to get this thing to install where other ports go?
Click to expand...
It does.
 
kpedersen said:
But does it not create a folder '/etc/X11'?
Click to expand...

No, that gets created by the base install. And strictly speaking it's not needed either. It will happily get it's configuration from /usr/local/etc/.
 
/etc/X11 is, as far as I know, the only part related to a third-party port that is present in the base system. And you can as well use /usr/local/etc/X11/ for xorg.conf if you want.
 
There are a number of things that affect the base system in the ports system. Servers install log files into /var/log (apache for example). Servers store database files in /var/db (mysql). Also, there are utilities that manipulate files in /etc (/etc/manpath.config and /etc/make.conf by use.perl).

So, no it really isn't as clean as it should be.

That said, I'm trying to extend the base system utilities to source configuration information from /usr/local/etc as well as /etc. I've got man(1) ported; newsyslog(8) is next. I guess I'll look at make(1) after that.
 
Ah cool.

So I guess /etc/X11 is just a legacy or compatibility thing.

Also, perhaps the packages database should be in /usr/local so it also gets obliterated along with all the packages if needed.

I wonder if I did create a packages account (that can only write to /usr/local), how far I would get installing (parhaps not running) some of the more common ports.
 
Anyway, I think that idea to make things clearer is a pretty nice one.

Should be more standardized, all executable files here, all configs there, and only some symbolic links for backward compatibility.
 
kpedersen said:
Ah cool.

So I guess /etc/X11 is just a legacy or compatibility thing.

Also, perhaps the packages database should be in /usr/local so it also gets obliterated along with all the packages if needed.

I wonder if I did create a packages account (that can only write to /usr/local), how far I would get installing (parhaps not running) some of the more common ports.
Click to expand...

The problem also comes with setuid permissions (sudo and screen to name two off the top of my head). A non-root account installing them wouldn't be able to do much.
 
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