Re: Trouble with RPM and %{_sysconfdir}.

["Jeff Johnson" <n3npq jbj gmail com>]

On 4/10/07, Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 gmail com> wrote:
> Is the "mistake" that my /etc/rpm/platform file has the word "redhat",
> so it does not match exactly the name of the subdirectory in
> /usr/lib/rpm ?

Here's some historical context that might help.

When per-platform configuration (i.e. /usr/lib/rpm/*/macros) was
added, vendor was not included in the name of the subdirs.

That means that the 2-tuple CPU-OS rather than the 3-tuple CPU-VENDOR-OS
was used as the name of per-platform configuration.

When vendor specific configuration was demanded of rpm, there needed to be some
way to provide per-vendor per-platform configuration. So the 3-tuple form was
handed to vendors for their per-platform confguration uses, while the 2-tuple
form was left to rpm default per-platform configuration.

What has never been clarified (and ultimately dooms the mess) is whether rpm
or the vendor is responsible for configuring rpm. The current scheme largely
inheirits most of the default configuration into vendor configuration implictly.

Meanwhile, %_sysconfdir is just a bleeping variable that you want to have
the value "/etc". Put the line
   %_sysconfdir /etc
in /etc/rpm/macros or ~/.rpmmacros and the value will be correct.

hth

73 de Jeff