Mailing List Archive

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:33:14PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> First, for reference, I have been using Gentoo for many years, on many
> different systems and types of hardware.
>
> Having purchased a new Powermac G5, I decided to use my old G4 as my web and
> mail server, and keep the old server as a dedicated firewall. So: Install
> went just fine, booted up first time, all is well. Then I do an 'emerge -u
> world' to get up to date. This is where the troubles started...
>
> At first, the glibc emerge broke. I found this bug, which certainly looked
> relevant: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78951
>
> After trying the tip in post #11 glibc built, but bailed out whilst moving
> files from the build directory to the live filesystem. Now everything
> segfaults, from 'ls' to python (both 2.3 and 2.4).
>
> So I guess I am resigned to a reinstall, though this really bugs me after the
> time invested so far. I guess I have a few questions:
>
> 1. Is there any way around this? Are there binary packages of glibc for ppc I
> could use to get around a reinstall? (wget still seems to work ;))
>

Did you try the glibc on the installation/Live CDs?
If there is no packages, simply copy all the glibc files over and try
it.

Basically, if you don't want to reinstall, you need a good glibc and
a good toolchain (gcc, binutils).

Once you have that, rebuild glibc.


> 2. Is this problem a sign of things to come? Is gentoo on ppc not stable
> enough to use as a server? Any advice from experts on this?

Gentoo is not really design for production environments because you
have no guarranty if all packages have been tested with the exact
same settings, lib version, gcc version, etc. as you.

It does not really have things to do with the ppc architecture itself.

I would recommend using an other operating system than Gentoo for your
server if keeping it running 24/24 and smoothly is an issue. Also,
for servers, you probably don't want to do updates other than security
updates.

David

---

David Bélanger
Web page: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/
Public key: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/public_key.txt

--
gentoo-ppc-user@gentoo.org mailing list

quoth the David Bélanger:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:33:14PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
>
> Did you try the glibc on the installation/Live CDs?
> If there is no packages, simply copy all the glibc files over and try
> it.

I have the universal install disk. The glibc package here will just be source
code wont it? I guess I could just re-unpack the stage 3 file, but I am
unsure how this will affect the packages I have already installed/updated,
such as everything you do after unpacking the stage tarball in the install
guide.

I am unsure of how to separate the glibc files from the rest in the stage
tarball.

> Basically, if you don't want to reinstall, you need a good glibc and
> a good toolchain (gcc, binutils).
>
> Once you have that, rebuild glibc.
>
> > 2. Is this problem a sign of things to come? Is gentoo on ppc not stable
> > enough to use as a server? Any advice from experts on this?
>
> Gentoo is not really design for production environments because you
> have no guarranty if all packages have been tested with the exact
> same settings, lib version, gcc version, etc. as you.

Well, I am well aware of the strengths/weaknesses of gentoo. I should say that
my current server, ie: the one I am trying to replace with this G4 box, has
been running gentoo for a couple years with no problems.

> It does not really have things to do with the ppc architecture itself.

Perhaps not, but I have run into this glibc problem in the first day! So what
I am trying to find out is if the packages I will be relying on (apache,
exim, mysql, named etc...) are reliable enough to use on this platform.

> I would recommend using an other operating system than Gentoo for your
> server if keeping it running 24/24 and smoothly is an issue. Also,
> for servers, you probably don't want to do updates other than security
> updates.

The server just runs my personal web/mailserver publically, and does pop3 and
DNS service for the private network behind it. I don't think you could call
this a "production" server with a strait face. While I do strive for
reliability with it, the worst that can happen if it goes down is bounced
mail, and "Unknown host" messages for those trying to view my webpages.

My more pressing concern is for security. I am currently running a hardened
kernel and toolchain, and would like to do the same with this one.

> David

Thanks for the reply,
-d

> ---
>
> David Bélanger
> Web page: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/
> Public key: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/public_key.txt

--
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

> 2. Is this problem a sign of things to come? Is gentoo on ppc not stable
> enough to use as a server? Any advice from experts on this?

Hardened ppc isn't really ready for use unless you want to help get the
issues worked out. I don't see a problem with using a non-hardened install.

-Joe
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gentoo-ppc-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 01:12:05PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
> quoth the David Bélanger:
> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:33:14PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
> >
> > Did you try the glibc on the installation/Live CDs?
> > If there is no packages, simply copy all the glibc files over and try
> > it.
>
> I have the universal install disk. The glibc package here will just be source
> code wont it? I guess I could just re-unpack the stage 3 file, but I am
> unsure how this will affect the packages I have already installed/updated,
> such as everything you do after unpacking the stage tarball in the install
> guide.
>
> I am unsure of how to separate the glibc files from the rest in the stage
> tarball.
>

If you can boot a Live/Installation CD, there will be a glibc on the /
filesystem mounted by the kernel. To get a list of files, you can use
the database on your disk:
/var/db/pkg/sys-libs/glibc-*/CONTENTS

Basically, you just want to have a valid set of files so that
you can rebuild glibc.

I erased before coreutils (ls, rm, cp, etc.) and I simply copied all of
them from my Debian partition. For some weird version the ones on the
Gentoo CD were not working... Once, I had valid binaries, I just
re-emerged coreutils and everything was fine.

Anyway, you might want to consider adding "buildpkg" to FEATURES in
/etc/make.conf. That way, next time something goes wrong you just
re-installed the previous version. buildpkg will do a tarball
for everything that gets installed on your system. So, you never
get stuck by not have a pre-compiled package.

In any case, you can always extract the full base tarball from the
installation CD. You will get more than what is needed but you
wont have to reinstall. It messes a little the system but you
can always remove later any files not owned by any installed ebuilds.


David

---

David Bélanger
Web page: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/
Public key: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/public_key.txt

--
gentoo-ppc-user@gentoo.org mailing list

quoth the David Bélanger:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 01:12:05PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
> > quoth the David Bélanger:
> > > On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 09:33:14PM -0800, darren kirby wrote:
> > >
> > > Did you try the glibc on the installation/Live CDs?
> > > If there is no packages, simply copy all the glibc files over and try
> > > it.
> >
> > I have the universal install disk. The glibc package here will just be
> > source code wont it? I guess I could just re-unpack the stage 3 file, but
> > I am unsure how this will affect the packages I have already
> > installed/updated, such as everything you do after unpacking the stage
> > tarball in the install guide.
> >
> > I am unsure of how to separate the glibc files from the rest in the stage
> > tarball.
>
> If you can boot a Live/Installation CD, there will be a glibc on the /
> filesystem mounted by the kernel. To get a list of files, you can use
> the database on your disk:
> /var/db/pkg/sys-libs/glibc-*/CONTENTS
>
> Basically, you just want to have a valid set of files so that
> you can rebuild glibc.
>
> I erased before coreutils (ls, rm, cp, etc.) and I simply copied all of
> them from my Debian partition. For some weird version the ones on the
> Gentoo CD were not working... Once, I had valid binaries, I just
> re-emerged coreutils and everything was fine.
>
> Anyway, you might want to consider adding "buildpkg" to FEATURES in
> /etc/make.conf. That way, next time something goes wrong you just
> re-installed the previous version. buildpkg will do a tarball
> for everything that gets installed on your system. So, you never
> get stuck by not have a pre-compiled package.

A good idea...

> In any case, you can always extract the full base tarball from the
> installation CD. You will get more than what is needed but you
> wont have to reinstall. It messes a little the system but you
> can always remove later any files not owned by any installed ebuilds.
>

Thank you, this is what I'll do.

> David

-d

>
> David Bélanger
> Web page: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/
> Public key: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/public_key.txt

--
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

> > In any case, you can always extract the full base tarball from the
> > installation CD. You will get more than what is needed but you
> > wont have to reinstall. It messes a little the system but you
> > can always remove later any files not owned by any installed ebuilds.
>
> Thank you, this is what I'll do.
>
> > David
>
> -d
>

Well, bad news. I re-extracted the tarball, and all seemed to be going well.
It still booted, and there were no segfaults. I emerged sync'ed again to see
if portage is working, and it seemed fine. So I start with installing vim
(can't stand nano ;)) and it wants to install a few packages, (ctags,
vim-core, vim, gentoo-syntax) so off I go. It gets through ctags just fine,
but then drops me back at a prompt, even though there were no errors! Huh?

So I try again:

eden etc # emerge -vp vim
Segmentation fault
eden etc # ls -l
Segmentation fault

I don't know why it is doing this, and I no longer care. I am just going to
reinstall, as I don't really want to begin this systems life in such a
botched state, even if it is possible to fix.

I do appreciate your help though, and hopefully with a clean slate things will
go better for me :)

Thanks,
-d
--
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

Extracting the tarball of glibc might not be sufficient if you have
the other (the broken one) still on your filesystem cause portage
thinks you're still using it. It would be a good idea to extract the
tarball to have a working system and then reextracting it but trough
portage (i think it is emerge -k glibc if i remember but check man
emerge cause i'm not sure). I think the source of this problem is that
env-update (which is invoked after every package merging) create
symlinks pointing to your broken glibc.

Nicolas

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