Cross-Compiled Linux From Scratch

Version 1.0.0-ALPHA

Jim Gifford

Ryan Oliver

Copyright (c) 2005, Jim Gifford & Ryan Oliver

All rights reserved.

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THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


Table of Contents

Preface

i. Foreword

The Linux From Scratch Project has seen many changes in the few years of its existence. I personally became involved with the project in 1999, around the time of the 2.x releases. At that time, the build process was to create static binaries with the host system, then chroot and build the final binaries on top of the static ones.

Later came the use of the /static directory to hold the initial static builds, keeping them separated from the final system, then the PureLFS process developed by Ryan Oliver and Greg Schafer, introducing a new toolchain build process that divorces even our initial builds from the host. Finally, LFS 6 bought Linux Kernel 2.6, the udev dynamic device structure, sanitized kernel headers, and other improvements to the Linux From Scratch system.

The one "flaw" in LFS is that it has always been based on an x86 class processor. With the advent of the Athlon 64 and Intel EM64T processors, the x86-only LFS is no longer ideal. Throughout this time, Ryan Oliver developed and documented a process by which you could build Linux for any system and from any system, by use of cross-compilation techniques. Thus, the Cross-Compiled LFS (CLFS) was born.

CLFS follows the same guiding principles the LFS project has always followed, e.g., knowing your system inside and out by virtue of having built the system yourself. Additionally, during a CLFS build, you will learn advanced techniques such as cross-build toolchains, multilib support (32 & 64-bit libraries side-by-side), alternative architectures such as Sparc, MIPS, and Alpha, and much more.

We hope you enjoy building your own CLFS system, and the benefits that come from a system tailored to your needs.

--
Jeremy Utley, CLFS 1.x Release Manager (Page Author)
Jim Gifford, CLFS Project Co-leader
Ryan Oliver, CLFS Project Co-leader
Joe Ciccone, Justin Knierim, Chris Staub, Matt Darcy, Ken Moffat,
Manuel Canales Esparcia, and Nathan Coulson - CLFS Developers

ii. Audience

There are many reasons why somebody would want to read this book. The principal reason is to install a Linux system from the source code. A question many people raise is, “why go through all the hassle of manually building a Linux system from scratch when you can just download and install an existing one?” That is a good question and is the impetus for this section of the book.

One important reason for the existence of CLFS is to help people understand how a Linux system works. Building an CLFS system helps demonstrate what makes Linux tick, and how things work together and depend on each other. One of the best things this learning experience provides is the ability to customize Linux to your own tastes and needs.

A key benefit of CLFS is that it allows users to have more control over their system without any reliance on a Linux implementation designed by someone else. With CLFS, you are in the driver's seat and dictate every aspect of the system, such as the directory layout and bootscript setup. You also dictate where, why, and how programs are installed.

Another benefit of CLFS is the ability to create a very compact Linux system. When installing a regular distribution, one is often forced to include several programs which are probably never used. These programs waste disk space or CPU cycles. It is not difficult to build an CLFS system of less than 100 megabytes (MB), which is substantially smaller than the majority of existing installations. Does this still sound like a lot of space? A few of us have been working on creating a very small embedded CLFS system. We successfully built a system that was specialized to run the Apache web server with approximately 8MB of disk space used. Further stripping could bring this down to 5 MB or less. Try that with a regular distribution! This is only one of the many benefits of designing your own Linux implementation.

We could compare Linux distributions to a hamburger purchased at a fast-food restaurant—you have no idea what might be in what you are eating. CLFS, on the other hand, does not give you a hamburger. Rather, CLFS provides the recipe to make the exact hamburger desired. This allows users to review the recipe, omit unwanted ingredients, and add your own ingredients to enhance the flavor of the burger. When you are satisfied with the recipe, move on to preparing it. It can be made to exact specifications—broil it, bake it, deep-fry it, or barbecue it.

Another analogy that we can use is that of comparing CLFS with a finished house. CLFS provides the skeletal plan of a house, but it is up to you to build it. CLFS maintains the freedom to adjust plans throughout the process, customizing it to the needs and preferences of the user.

Security is an additional advantage of a custom built Linux system. By compiling the entire system from source code, you are empowered to audit everything and apply all the security patches desired. It is no longer necessary to wait for somebody else to compile binary packages that fix a security hole. Unless you examine the patch and implement it yourself, you have no guarantee that the new binary package was built correctly and adequately fixes the problem.

The goal of Cross Linux From Scratch is to build a complete and usable foundation-level system. Readers who do not wish to build their own Linux system from scratch may not benefit from the information in this book. If you only want to know what happens while the computer boots, we recommend the “From Power Up To Bash Prompt” HOWTO located at http://axiom.anu.edu.au/~okeefe/p2b/ or on The Linux Documentation Project's (TLDP) website at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.html. The HOWTO builds a system which is similar to that of this book, but it focuses strictly on creating a system capable of booting to a BASH prompt. Consider your objective. If you wish to build a Linux system and learn along the way, this book is your best choice.

There are too many good reasons to build your own CLFS system to list them all here. This section is only the tip of the iceberg. As you continue in your CLFS experience, you will find the power that information and knowledge truly bring.

iii. Prerequisites

Building a CLFS system is not a simple task. It requires a certain level of existing knowledge of Unix system administration in order to resolve problems, and correctly execute the commands listed. In particular, as an absolute minimum, the reader should already have the ability to use the command line (shell) to copy or move files and directories, list directory and file contents, and change the current directory. It is also expected that the reader has a reasonable knowledge of using and installing Linux software. A basic knowledge of the architectures being used in the Cross LFS process and the host operating systems in use is also required.

Because the CLFS book assumes at least this basic level of skill, the various CLFS support forums are unlikely to be able to provide you with much assistance. Your questions regarding such basic knowledge will likely go unanswered, or you will be referred to the CLFS essential pre-reading list.

Before building a CLFS system, we recommend reading the following HOWTOs:

iv. Host System Requirements

You should be able to build a CLFS system from just about any Unix-type operating system. Your host system should have the following software with the minimum versions indicated. Also note that many distributions will place software headers into separate packages, often in the form of “[package-name]-devel” or “[package-name]-dev”. Be sure to install those if your distribution provides them.

  • Bash-2.05a

  • Binutils-2.12 (Versions greater than 2.17 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

  • Bzip2-1.0.2

  • Coreutils-5.0 (or Sh-Utils-2.0, Textutils-2.0, and Fileutils-4.1)

  • Diffutils-2.8

  • Findutils-4.1.20

  • Gawk-3.0

  • Gcc-2.95.3 (Versions greater than 4.1.1 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

  • Glibc-2.2.5 (Versions greater than 2.4 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

  • Grep-2.5

  • Gzip-1.2.4

  • Make-3.79.1

  • Patch-2.5.4

  • Sed-3.0.2

  • Tar-1.14

To see whether your host system has all the appropriate versions, run the following:

cat > version-check.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash

# Simple script to list version numbers of critical development tools

bash --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-4
echo -n "Binutils: "; ld --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f3-4
bzip2 --version 2>&1 < /dev/null | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1,6-
echo -n "Coreutils: "; chown --version | head -n1 | cut -d")" -f2
diff --version | head -n1
find --version | head -n1
gawk --version | head -n1
gcc --version | head -n1
/lib/libc.so.6 | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1-7
grep --version | head -n1
gzip --version | head -n1
make --version | head -n1
patch --version | head -n1
sed --version | head -n1
tar --version | head -n1

EOF

bash version-check.sh

v. Typography

To make things easier to follow, there are a few typographical conventions used throughout this book. This section contains some examples of the typographical format found throughout Cross-Compiled Linux From Scratch.

./configure --prefix=/usr

This form of text is designed to be typed exactly as seen unless otherwise noted in the surrounding text. It is also used in the explanation sections to identify which of the commands is being referenced.

install-info: unknown option '--dir-file=/mnt/clfs/usr/info/dir'

This form of text (fixed-width text) shows screen output, probably as the result of commands issued. This format is also used to show filenames, such as /etc/ld.so.conf.

Emphasis

This form of text is used for several purposes in the book. Its main purpose is to emphasize important points or items.

http://cross-lfs.org/

This format is used for hyperlinks, both within the CLFS community and to external pages. It includes HOWTOs, download locations, and websites.

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
......
EOF

This format is used when creating configuration files. The first command tells the system to create the file ${CLFS}/etc/group from whatever is typed on the following lines until the sequence end of file (EOF) is encountered. Therefore, this entire section is generally typed as seen.

[REPLACED TEXT]

This format is used to encapsulate text that is not to be typed as seen or copied-and-pasted.

passwd(5)

This format is used to refer to a specific manual page (hereinafter referred to simply as a “man” page). The number inside parentheses indicates a specific section inside of man. For example, passwd has two man pages. Per CLFS installation instructions, those two man pages will be located at /usr/share/man/man1/passwd.1 and /usr/share/man/man5/passwd.5. Both man pages have different information in them. When the book uses passwd(5) it is specifically referring to /usr/share/man/man5/passwd.5. man passwd will print the first man page it finds that matches “passwd”, which will be /usr/share/man/man1/passwd.1. For this example, you will need to run man 5 passwd in order to read the specific page being referred to. It should be noted that most man pages do not have duplicate page names in different sections. Therefore, man [program name] is generally sufficient.

vi. Structure

This book is divided into the following parts.

vi.1. Part I - Introduction

Part I explains a few important notes on how to proceed with the Cross-LFS installation. This section also provides meta-information about the book.

vi.2. Part II - Preparing for the Build

Part II describes how to prepare for the building process—making a partition and downloading the packages.

vi.3. Part III - Make the Cross-Compile Tools

Part III shows you how to make a set of Cross-Compiler tools. These tools can run on your host system but allow you to build packages that will run on your target system.

vi.4. Part IV - Building the Basic Tools

Part IV explains how to build a tool chain designed to operate on your target system. These are the tools that will allow you to build a working system on your target computer.

vi.5. Part V - Building the CLFS System

Part V guides the reader through the building of the CLFS system—compiling and installing all the packages one by one, setting up the boot scripts, and installing the kernel. The resulting Linux system is the foundation on which other software can be built to expand the system as desired. At the end of this book, there is an easy to use reference listing all of the programs, libraries, and important files that have been installed.

vi.6. Appendices

The appendices contain information that doesn't really fit anywhere else in the book. Appendix A contains definitions of acronyms and terms used in the book; Appendix B gives acknowledgments to people who have helped work on the CLFS project and website; Appendix C and D have information about package dependencies and the the build order. Some architectures may have additional appendices for arch-specific issues.

vii. Errata

The software used to create a CLFS system is constantly being updated and enhanced. Security warnings and bug fixes may become available after the CLFS book has been released. Some host systems may also have problems building CLFS. To check whether the package versions or instructions in this release of CLFS need any modifications to accommodate security vulnerabilities, other bug fixes, or host-specific issues, please visit http://trac.cross-lfs.org/clfs/errata/1.0.0/ before proceeding with your build. You should note any changes shown and apply them to the relevant section of the book as you progress with building the CLFS system.

Part I. Introduction

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. Cross-LFS Acknowledgements

The CLFS team would like to acknowledge people who have assisted in making the book what it is today.

Our Leaders:

  • Ryan Oliver - Build Process Developer.

  • Jim Gifford - Lead Developer.

  • Jeremy Utley - Release Manager 1.x Series.

Our CLFS Team:

  • Joe Ciccone - Alpha, MIPS, Sparc builds.

  • Nathan Coulson - Bootscripts.

  • Matt Darcy - x86, X86_64, and Sparc builds.

  • Manuel Canales Esparcia - Book XML.

  • Karen McGuiness - Proofreader.

  • Jeremy Huntwork - PowerPC, x86, Sparc builds.

  • Justin Knierim - Website Architect.

  • Ken Moffat - PowerPC and X86_64 builds. Developer of Pure 64 Hint.

  • Alexander E. Patrakov - Udev/Hotplug Integration

  • Chris Staub - x86 builds. Leader of Quality Control.

Outside the Development Team

  • Jürg Billeter - Testing and assisting in the development of the Linux Headers Package

  • Richard Downing - Testing, typo, and content fixes.

  • Peter Ennis - Typo and content fixes.

  • Tony Morgan - Typo and content fixes.

The CLFS team would also like to acknowledge contributions of people from clfs-dev@lists.cross-lfs.org and associated mailing lists who have provided valuable technical and editorial corrections while testing the Cross-LFS book.

  • G. Moko - Text updates and Typos

  • Maxim Osipov - MIPS Testing.

  • Doug Ronne - Various x86_64 fixes.

  • William Zhou - Text updates and Typos

  • Theo Schneider - Testing of the Linux Headers Package

Thank you all for your support.

1.2. How to Build a CLFS System

The CLFS system will be built by using a previously installed Unix system or Linux distribution (such as Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, SUSE, or Ubuntu). This existing system (the host) will be used as a starting point to provide necessary programs, including a compiler, linker, and shell, to build the new system. Select the “development” option during the distribution installation to be able to access these tools.

As an alternative to installing an entire separate distribution onto your machine, you may wish to use the Linux From Scratch LiveCD. This CD works well as a host system, providing all the tools you need to successfully follow the instructions in this book. It does also contain source packages and patches for the LFS book, and a copy of the LFS book, but not the needed packages or book for CLFS. You can still use the CD for building CLFS, but you will need to download the packages, patches and book separately. You can also look at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/lfscd-remastering-howto.txt for infomation on building your own CD, replacing the LFS packages and book with those for CLFS. Once you have the CD, no network connection or additional downloads are necessary. For more information about the LFS LiveCD or to download a copy, visit http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/livecd/.

Preparing a New Partition of this book describes how to create a new Linux native partition and file system, the place where the new CLFS system will be compiled and installed. Packages and Patches explains which packages and patches need to be downloaded to build a CLFS system and how to store them on the new file system. Final Preparations discusses the setup for an appropriate working environment. Please read Final Preparations carefully as it explains several important issues the developer should be aware of before beginning to work through Constructing Cross-Compile Tools and beyond.

Constructing Cross-Compile Tools explains the installation of cross-compile tools which will be built on the host but be able to compile programs that run on the target machine. These cross-compile tools will be used to create a temporary, minimal system that will be the basis for building the final CLFS system. Some of these packages are needed to resolve circular dependencies—for example, to compile a compiler, you need a compiler.

The process of building cross-compile tools first involves building and installing all the necessary tools to create a build system for the target machine. With these cross-compiled tools, we eliminate any dependencies on the toolchain from our host distro.

After we build our “Cross-Tools”, we start building a very minimal working system in /tools. This minimal system will be built using the cross-toolchain in /cross-tools.

In Installing Basic System Software, the full CLFS system is built. Depending on the system you are cross-compiling for, you will either boot the minimal temp-system on the target machine, or chroot into it.

The chroot (change root) program is used to enter a virtual environment and start a new shell whose root directory will be set to the CLFS partition. This is very similar to rebooting and instructing the kernel to mount the CLFS partition as the root partition. The major advantage is that “chrooting” allows the builder to continue using the host while CLFS is being built. While waiting for package compilation to complete, a user can switch to a different virtual console (VC) or X desktop and continue using the computer as normal.

Some systems cannot be built by chrooting so they must be booted instead. Generally, if you building for a different arch than the host system, you must reboot because the kernel will likely not support the target machine. Booting involves installing a few additional packages that are needed for bootup, installing bootscripts, and building a miminal kernel. We also describe some alternative booting methods in Section 7.20, “What to do next”

To finish the installation, the CLFS-Bootscripts are set up in Setting Up System Bootscripts, and the kernel and boot loader are set up in Making the CLFS System Bootable. The End contains information on furthering the CLFS experience beyond this book. After the steps in this book have been implemented, the computer will be ready to reboot into the new CLFS system.

This is the process in a nutshell. Detailed information on each step is discussed in the following chapters and package descriptions. Items that may seem complicated will be clarified, and everything will fall into place as the reader embarks on the CLFS adventure.

1.3. Master Changelog

This is version 1.0.0 of the Cross-Compiled Linux From Scratch book, dated September 21, 2006. If this book is more than six months old, a newer and better version is probably already available. To find out, please check one of the mirrors via http://trac.cross-lfs.org/.

Below is a list of detailed changes made since the previous release of the book.

Changelog Entries:

  • September 18, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed TeX installation commands from Texinfo instructions.

  • September 16, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Udev-Cross-LFS rules to 1.0-3. Fixes bootup with /lib64/udev.

  • September 10, 2006

    • [jim] - Added a patch to fix Inetutils. Telnet on 64 bit systems will fail, it will attempt to connect to 255.255.255.255 instead of the ip address entered. This was due to a change in glibc's handling of inet_addr, was long now is u_int32_t. Bug found by Vladimir Vainer.

    • [jim] - Add patch to fix gzexe. Used Matts change from LFS, that utilizes Robert's fix. More details at http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ticket/1876.

    • [Chris] - Added Host System Requiremets page, and added more info to the "To Boot or Chroot?" page about needing a 2.6.x Linux kernel to chroot.

  • September 9, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux to 2.6.17.13 and Linux Headers to 2.6.17.13-09092006.

  • September 8, 2006

    • [jim] - Fixed Perl Testsuite Network tests.

  • September 7, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Multilib Tree to follow build standards set in the book.

    • [jim] - Updated copy commands in Linux Headers, simpler and cleaner.

  • September 6, 2006

    • [jim] - UDEV Rules - On multilib builds, change /lib/udev to /lib64/udev, to keep consistency through the system.

    • [jim] - Removed sed from tcl, not required.

    • [jim] - Replace Perl FPIC patch with a sed, to make sure fpic is set correctly.

  • September 5, 2006

    • [jim] - UDEV - On multilib builds, change /lib/udev to /lib64/udev, to keep consistency through the system.

    • [jim] - IPRoute2 - On multilib builds, change /usr/lib/tc to /usr/lib64/tc, to keep consistency through the system.

  • August 28, 2006

    • [jim] - Renamed Cross-LFS Bootscripts 0.4 to 1.0, for the release. No changes made to the scripts.

    • [jim] - Renamed Cross-LFS Udev Rules 0.1-07062006 to 1.0, for the release. No changes made to the rules.

  • August 27, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Cross-LFS Bootscripts 0.4.

  • August 23, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux to 2.6.17.11 and Linux Headers to 2.6.17.11-08232006.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux to 2.6.17.10 and Linux Headers to 2.6.17.10-08232006.

  • August 21, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Added a multilib perl setup that has a multilib wrapper. The multilib wrapper checks for the value of PERL_ARCH and executes the cooresponding perl binary.

    • [ken] - Remove include/net from instructions for headers.

  • August 20, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Added the Perl fPIC patch which makes perl build a shared DynaLoader.a.

    • [Chris] - Removed mention of package users hint from "Package Management" page.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux to 2.6.17.9 and Linux Headers to 2.6.17.9-08202006.

    • [jim] - Added Linux Tulip Patch to all Linux 2.6.17.9 builds. Fixes an initialization error.

  • August 8, 2006

    • [jim] - Moved man-pages to the beginning of the build. (fixes ticket #82).

    • [jim] - Updated the wording of Bzip2, changes were made to MIPS but not the other multilib architectures. Updated for all architectures now (fixes ticket #79).

  • August 7, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated udev explanatory text in the book and added "Custom Symlinks" page, taken from LFS. Thanks to Alexander Patrakov for the updated text (fixes ticket #75).

  • August 3, 2006

    • [ken] - Fixed the temporary bash to correct a failure in the Glibc testsuite, (fixes ticket #78). Thanks to Go Moko.

  • July 27, 2006

    • [jim] - Fixed symlink issue in bootscripts. New Package CLFS-bootscripts 0.3.

  • July 25, 2006

    • [jim] - Symlinks /tools/bin/file to /usr/bin/file for the GCC testsuite.

  • July 24, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated commands for building the keymap into the kernel - changed the bootable/kernel page to account for the new keymap files location, and changed the instructions in the "boot" section to reflect that fact that we don't know where the keymap files may be on the host (fixes ticket #56).

  • July 20, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-2.6.17.6 and linux-headers-2.6.17.6-07202006.

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 096.

  • July 17, 2006

    • [jeremy] - Minor foreword fixups courtesy of Karen.

  • July 16, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed unneeded chown and chmod commands from final-system linux-headers installation.

    • [Chris] - Added a sed command to fix updatedb due to the new location for the find program.

  • July 14, 2006

    • [jeremy] - Updated to new foreword

  • July 11, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.4-07112006.

  • July 9, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.4-07092006.

  • July 8, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-2.6.17.4 and linux-headers-2.6.17.4-07072006.

    • [Chris] - Removed many "${CLFS}" references from explanatory text in boot section.

  • July 7, 2006

    • [Chris] - Modified the "creating directories" sections - changed multilib instructions to be consistent with the new format now used for every other arch, and changed mips instructions to use xincludes.

  • July 6, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Udev rules to 07062006, Fixed cdrom, permissions and groups.

  • July 5, 2006

    • [jim] - Fixes a possible issue with bootscripts if the the /usr partition is not mounted during startup. Moved find to /bin and moved some kbd utilities to /bin.

  • July 4, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated the Grub patch to fix various issues, see text of patch for more details.

  • July 2, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated passwd and group file creation to only create minimal users and groups and include information on other users/groups.

    • [jim] - Added file to Testsuite tools, required for gcc tests.

  • July 1, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated the build to use CLFS in variables instead of LFS. Also change /mnt/lfs to /mnt/clfs.

  • June 29, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Temp-System and Boot builds to be more consistant. Added --build=${LFS_HOST}, where possible.

    • [jim] - Updated to Cross-LFS Bootscripts. Added check for for /etc/sysconfig/createfiles.

  • June 27, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.1-06272006.

  • June 25, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.1-06252006.

  • June 24, 2006

    • [jeremy] - Release of 1.0.0-rc1

  • June 23, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Binutils 2.17.

    • [jim] - Updated Cross-LFS Specific Packages and Patches links for Release.

  • June 22, 2006

    • [jim] - Added mktemp to Linux dependency list. New dependency as of 2.6.17.

    • [jim] - Updated Vim 7.0 patch.

  • June 21, 2006

    • [Chris] - Text updates to the book, including replacing "LFS" with "CLFS".

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.1-06212006-1.

    • [jim] - Updated Vim 7.0 patch.

  • June 20, 2006

    • [jeremy] - Corrected e2fsprogs installation in the boot section, to take into account the new mke2fs.conf file.

    • [jciccone] - Updated to linux-2.6.17.1 and linux-headers-2.6.17.1-06202006.

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-headers-2.6.17.1-06202006-1.

  • June 19, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated to man-1.6d.

    • [jciccone] - Added an iconv_fix patch to glibc which fixes an issue that has shown up primarily in samba.

    • [jciccone] - Updated to linux-2.6.17 and linux-headers-2.6.17-06192006.

  • June 15, 2006

    • [jim] - Let Perl use thread support.

  • June 14, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Binutils 2.16.94.

  • June 10, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updates to lists of installed programs for several packages.

    • [Ken] - Fixed the module-init-tools install in the presence of existing files. Thanks to Manuel for pointing me to the fix in LFS, and to Dan Nicholson for the fix.

  • June 9, 2006

    • [jim] - Updates to Shadow 4.0.16 build instructions.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux Headers 2.6.16.20 to 06092006.

  • June 7, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Shadow 4.0.16.

  • June 6, 2006

    • [Chris] - Added many more -v switches for verbosity.

  • June 5, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-2.6.16.20, and linux-headers-2.6.16.20.

    • [jim] - Updated to Bison 2.3.

  • June 4, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed obsolete paragraph about "resetting" passwords when using pwconv from Shadow instructions.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux Headers 2.6.16.19 to 06042006.

  • June 1, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated list of installed programs for several packages.

  • May 31, 2006

    • [ken] - Removed redundant chown of /usr/share/libtool/libltdl.

    • [jim] - Updated to linux-2.6.16.19, and linux-headers-2.6.16.19.

  • May 30, 2006

    • [jim] - Added a patch to fix a missing declaration of R_OK in util-linux.

    • [Chris] - Removed the long-gone swapdev program from the list of programs installed by util-linux, and several programs not installed by default from the kbd program list.

    • [jim] - Updated to E2fsprogs 1.39.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.33.

  • May 29, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Binutils 2.16.93.

    • [jim] - Updated to UDEV 093.

    • [jim] - Updated Udev Rules to 0.1-05292006.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.18 to 05292006.

  • May 28, 2006

    • [jim] - Added a patch to Grub to prevent. Error 24: Attempt to access block outside partition.

  • May 25, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to GCC 4.1.1.

    • [jim] - Add Vim 7.0 Upstream Patches.

  • May 22, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Coreutils 5.96.

    • [jim] - Updated linux-2.6.16.18, and linux-headers-2.6.16.18.

  • May 21, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated to Bison-2.2, linux-2.6.16.17, and linux-headers-2.6.16.17.

  • May 17, 2006

    • [Chris] - Made a number of text updates and grammar fixes and added more dependency info (bootscripts, udev-rules, tree) to Appendix C.

  • May 16, 2006

    • [Chris] - Changed the temp-system and final-system package build order and a few package build instructions to account for the changed order (the rest of ticket #26).

    • [ken] - Change name of coreutils patch to match the patch.

  • May 15, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.32.

  • May 14, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Udev Rules to 0.1-05142006.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.16 to 05142006.

  • May 13, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Coreutils 5.95.

  • May 12, 2006

    • [jim] - Add Vim 7.0 Upstream Patches.

  • May 11, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux and Linux Headers to 2.6.16.16.

    • [jim] - Add Vim 7.0 Upstream Patches.

  • May 10,2006

    • [Chris] - Added more detailed dependency info and moved it to Appendices C and D. Fixes half of ticket #26.

  • May 9, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Binutils 2.16.92.

    • [jim] - Updated to Vim 7.0.

    • [jciccone] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.15.

  • May 7, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.14 to 05072006.

  • May 6, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.14 to 05062006.

  • May 4, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux-2.6.16.14.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.13 to 05042006.

  • May 3, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.31.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux-2.6.16.13.

    • [jim] - Updated to Iana-Etc 2.10.

  • May 2, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.12 to 05022006.

    • [jim] - Reverted change to bash. Needed on some architectures.

    • [jim] - Fixed a coreutils cross-compile issues on some architectures.

  • May 1, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.30.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.11 to 05012006.

    • [Chris] - Updated to Linux-2.6.16.12.

  • April 30, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.11 to 04302006.

  • April 29, 2006

    • [ken] - Add asm-generic to headers which are chowned in non-multilib books.

  • April 28, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux Headers 2.6.16.11 to 04282006.

    • [jim] - Updated Udev Rules to 0.1-04282006.

  • April 27, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux Headers 2.6.16.11 to 04272006.

  • April 25, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 091.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux Headers 2.6.16.11 to 04262006.

  • April 24, 2006

    • [ken] - Updated to iproute2-2.6.16-060323.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux and Linux Headers 2.6.16.11.

  • April 22, 2006

    • [ken] - Add example commands to test if chroot is possible, thanks to William Zhou.

  • April 21, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Linux-Headers to fix x86_64-biarch problem.

  • April 20, 2006

    • [jim] - Added missing asm-generic copy to Linux-Headers.

    • [jim] - Updated Linux-Headers to include nvram.h.

  • April 19, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Bash Patch -8.

    • [jim] - Removed Linux-Libc-Headers and replace it with our Linux-Headers package.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.9.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.8.

  • April 18, 2006

    • [jim] - Renamed gcc fold_const patch to the PR #.

    • [jim] - Added GCC 4.1.0 patch PR20425. This allows searching of multilib dirs for the specs file.

  • April 17, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed sed command from temp-system bash - no longer needed for Bash 3.1.

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 090.

    • [jim] - Updated to udev-rules 0.1-04172006.

    • [jciccone] - Added a gcc patch that fixes an optimaztion error which can result in incorrect code.

    • [jciccone] - Removed the util-linux and kernel patch that fixes the checksum calculation for sun disklabels.

  • April 14, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Added a security patch to tar.

    • [jciccone] - Added a util-linux and kernel patch to fix a checksum calculation issue for sun disklabels.

  • April 13, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to GCC 4.1.0.

    • [jim] - Fixed make install-minimal in udev-rules.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.5.

  • April 12, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Glibc 2.4.

    • [jim] - Updated to latest bash patch -7.

  • April 10, 2006

    • [jim] - Changed numbering of udev-rules to use 0.1-SVNDATE.

  • April 6, 2006

    • [jim] - Added install-minimal to udev rules.

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 089.

  • April 1, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Make 3.81.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.28.

  • March 28, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.1.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.27.

  • March 27, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated coreutils suppress_uptime_kill_su patch to -2.

    • [jciccone] - Updated readline fixes patch to -3.patch.

    • [jciccone] - Updated bash fixes patch to -6.

  • March 22, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Udev to build floppy helper.

  • March 21, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 088.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.26.

    • [jim] - Updated to IPRoute2 2.6.15-060110.

  • March 20, 2006

    • [jim] - Fixed build issue with Texinfo in temp-system. Added --build.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16.

    • [jim] - Updated to Shadow 4.0.15.

    • [Chris] - Removed note about GCC 2.95.3 from kernel section, as documentation has been updated in linux-2.6.16 and it now recommends GCC >= 3.2.

  • March 15, 2006

    • [jim] - Changed bootscripts to CLFS-bootscripts 0.1.

    • [jim] - Updated to Psmisc 22.2.

    • [jim] - Updated to Flex 2.5.33.

  • March 14, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.16-rc6.

    • [jim] - Removal of Hotplug.

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 087.

    • [jim] - Removal of old udev rules.

    • [jim] - Added Udev-Cross-LFS 0.1.

    • [jim] - Updated to GCC 4.0.3.

    • [jim] - Updated to File 4.17.

  • March 13, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Removed pure64 bootloader warning from the top page.

  • March 9, 2006

    • [Chris] - Simplified IPRoute2 instruction by removing redundant "configure" command.

  • March 2, 2006

    • [Chris] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.25.

    • [Chris] - Reverted to Expect 5.43.0. 5.44.1 depends on Tk.

  • February 27, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Bash fixes patch to -5.

  • February 26, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Expect 5.44.1.

  • February 23, 2006

    • [Chris] - Simplified the "Changing Ownership" page for the boot section, and rewrote some of the text in the final "Reboot" page.

  • February 21, 2006

    • [jim] - Removed Dependency of Tempfile from Bzip2.

    • [jim] - Updated Bash fixes patch to -4.

    • [jciccone] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.24

  • February 14, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Coreutils 5.94.

  • February 11, 2006

    • [Chris] - Added -v switches to commands that accept it.

  • February 9, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.23.

  • February 8, 2006

    • [jim] - Changed x86_64 to use unknown in the target triplet.

  • February 7, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed inetutils from boot section - it will be covered in the "netboot" hint.

    • [Chris] - Added section on Package Management - moved out of BLFS.

  • February 6, 2006

    • [Chris] - Moved the text explaining why binutils should be the first package compiled to a more appopriate location at the first installation of binutils, and changed the wording in temp-system gettext.

    • [jim] - Updated Readline and Bash patches from Upstream.

  • February 5, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Procps 32bit build in Multilib builds to use lib64=lib. Fixed via Trac Ticket #2.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.22.

  • February 3, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Sed 4.1.5.

  • February 2, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Perl 5.8.8.

    • [jhuntwork] - Minor textual fix to GCC.

  • February 1, 2006

    • [Chris] - Added a sed substitution to man instructions to fix an error in the makewhatis script.

  • January 31, 2006

    • [Chris] - Added -v to commands that accept them, for consistency with LFS.

  • January 30, 2006

    • [jim] - Change final-system GCC, to use make bootstrap. Update provided by Ryan Oliver.

  • January 29, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated Toolchain adjustment in final-system. Thank you Dan Nicholson.

  • January 24, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Man 1.6c.

  • January 23, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed unnecessary --with-ncurses switches from temp-system bash and inetutils.

    • [Chris] - Moved zlib from temp-system to boot as it's not needed if you chroot.

  • January 19, 2006

    • [Chris] - Removed patch from shadow instructions.

    • [Chris] - Added perl sprintf vulnerability patch.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.21.

  • January 13, 2006

    • [ken] - Moved grep ahead of libtool to avoid /tools being hardcoded into the libtool script for EGREP.

    • [ken] - Alter bison to build repeatably, from LFS.

    • [ken] - Alter gccbug to use mktemp, from LFS.

    • [ken] - Move creation of /etc/hosts within Perl instructions, for repeatability, from LFS.

    • [Chris] - Moved bootloader setup to right after "Changing Ownership" in Chapter 7, and changed several package installation instructions in that chapter.

  • January 12, 2006

    • [Chris] - Moved directory and symlink creation pages to the beginning of Chapter 7.

    • [jim] - Updated to Psmisc 22.1.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.20.

    • [jim] - Updated Coreutils build instructions to copy more files to /bin. These are changes for bootscripts and the new udev rules.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.14.6.

    • [jim] - Numerous complaints about temp-system Perl failing to build. So I moved temp perl to first package in final-system build. The failures we noted on Pure 64 builds.

  • January 11, 2006

    • [jim] - Rewrote wrote zlib final instructions to include a patch the will allow build of static and shared libraries at the same time. Thanx for the recommendation Tushar Teredesai.

  • January 8, 2006

    • [Chris] - Rewrote much of the description of the build process and test suite information.

  • January 3, 2006

    • [jim] - Updated to Shadow 4.0.14.

  • December 30, 2005

    • [Chris] - Updated package dependencies, removed explanation of "target alias" and "cross-compiling" from final-system binutils, and removed note about GRUB's testsuite failure.

    • [ken] - Fix where tree gets installed.

  • December 29, 2005

    • [jim] - Added CC="gcc" to temp-system perl build.

  • December 28, 2005

    • [ken] - Remove --with-x=no from expect - either we booted, or we are in chroot.

    • [ken] - Fix a failure to build glibc-headers.

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.14.5.

  • December 23, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated Shadow patch to fix linking to outside libraries.

  • December 22, 2005

    • [jim] - Bash Maintainer Released Bash-001 patch. This patch fixes the following issue: There are parsing problems with compound assignments in several contexts, including as arguments to builtins like `local', `eval', and `let', and as multiple assignments in a single command.

    • [jim] - Readline Maintainer Released Readline-001 patch. This patch fixes the following issue: A problem with the readline callback interface can result in segmentation faults when using the delete-char function via a multiple-key sequence. Two consecutive calls to delete-char will crash the application calling readline.

    • [jim] - Removed halt, sync, and shutdown users. These users work, but offer a potential security threat. Thus the reason for removal.

    • [jim] - Fixed Vim symlink. Thank you LFS and Jeremy Huntwork.

  • December 20, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to M4 1.4.4.

  • December 19, 2005

    • [ken] - Fix for accessing vim's documentation, from LFS.

    • [jim] - Fixed the Gettext testsuite from failing, by fixing an issue in Gawk. Thank you Greg Schaefer.

  • December 18, 2005

    • [jim] - Re-arranged temp-tools. Renamed it to testsuite-tools. Moved perl and texinfo to temp-system. Moved flags from testsuite-tools to chroot and boot sections.

    • [jim] - Removed 32bit and N32 builds from temp-system, upon testing it was found that these were not needed for building the final system on a multilib capable build.

    • [jim] - Updated to Libtool 1.5.22.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.18.

  • December 17, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to psmisc 21.9.

  • December 16, 2005

    • [jim] - Moved Tree to temp-tools, since it's not needed for the final-system.

    • [jim] - Moved Procps before perl in the final-system build. Fixes test suite issue in perl.

  • December 15, 2005

    • [ken] - Minor fix for rendering in temp-tools/texinfo.

    • [jim] - Added not to temp-system about the WARNING message.

  • December 14, 2005

    • [jim] - Change the CLFS_HOST and CLFS_TARGET pages to prevent further build issues.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.17.

    • [jim] - Added Tree 1.5.0. Added for the udev testsuite.

  • December 13, 2005

    • [jim] - Removed setvbuf test from Temp-System Bash compile. Thanks to David Fix.

  • December 12, 2005

    • [jim] - Removed testsuites from Temp-Tools section.

  • December 11, 2005

    • [ken] - Fix Tcl configure, thanks to Greg Schafer.

  • December 9, 2005

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Module Init Tools 3.2.2.

    • [ken] - Bzip2 - clarify what is being tested.

    • [jim] - Removed installation of sound sanitized headers. They will be removed in the next release of linux-libc-headers.

  • December 8, 2005

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Less 394.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Bash 3.1.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Readline 5.1.

  • December 7, 2005

    • [jim] - Upgraded to TCL 8.4.12.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to IPRoute2 2.6.14-051107.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Readline 5.0.5.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Bash 3.0.16.

  • December 6, 2005

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Glibc 20051107.

    • [jim] - Sparcv8 now uses the same Glibc as the other architectures.

    • [jim] - Ported Gettext update from Temp-system LFS to Cross-LFS.

    • [ken] - Tidying in Gettext to reflect our differences from LFS, and correct the date in changelog.

    • [jim] - Moved Cross-tools from $HOME to LFS. This provide a easy way for livecd builders to not loose valueable build time, if something goes wrong.

    • [jim] - Upgraded to Findutils 4.2.27.

  • December 5, 2005

    • [Matt Darcy] - Updated the resources page to include reference and base instructions on using the LFS pastebin

    • [Matt Darcy] - Updated some of the missing text poritions of the book

    • [Matt Darcy] - Updated creation of $CLFSHOME parameter to a less user error system. This change will will need to be validated by by other devs

    • [ken] - Moved Mktemp ahead of Module-init-tools so that the latter's testsuite doesn't bail out when testing generate-modprobe.conf.

  • December 3, 2005

    • [ken] - Reference a home directory for dummy user when testing coreutils, and correct sed 'man page' to 'HTML documentation', both from LFS.

  • December 2, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.16.

  • December 1, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to Linux 2.6.14.3.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.15.

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 076.

    • [jim] - Added support for Sparc v8 and below.

  • November 30, 2005

    • [jim] - Text updates to final-system.

    • [jim] - Text updates to temp-tools.

  • November 29, 2005

    • [jim] - Text updates to chroot.

    • [jim] - Text updates to boot.

  • November 28, 2005

    • [jim] - Text updates to glibc in all sections.

    • [jim] - Text updates to temp-system.

    • [jim] - Fixed duplicated gcc configure line in gcc. Thank you Dennis Perkins.

  • November 27, 2005

    • [jim] - Text updates to gcc in all sections.

    • [jim] - Updates to Ncurses, added curses file and link. Thank you G. Moko.

  • November 25, 2005

    • [jim] - Text updates to binutils in all sections.

  • November 24, 2005

    • [Matt Darcy] - Text updates to resources page

    • [Matt Darcy] - Updated reference to LFS news server to reflect that it no longer exists

  • November 23, 2005

    • [jim] - For inetutils to utilize the Ncurses headers in /tools/include.

  • November 21, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to Udev 075.

    • [jim] - Updated to Module Init Tools 3.2.1.

  • November 20, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to Findutils 4.2.26.

  • November 18, 2005

    • [manuel] - Fixed the unpack of the module-init-tools-testsuite package.

  • November 17, 2005

    • [jim] - Update to Man-Pages 2.14.

    • [jim] - Update to Linux 2.6.14.2. This includes changes for the MIPS Architecture. New Patch added.

    • [jim] - Added change to move /usr/bin/less to /bin/less.

  • November 13, 2005

    • [manuel] - Improve the heuristic for determining a locale that is supported by both Glibc and packages outside LFS. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [manuel] - Omit running Bzip2's testsuite as a separate step, as make runs it automatically. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [jim] - Updated TCL build to install headers. Thank you Greg Schafer.

    • [jim] - Updated Expect to use the newly relocated TCL Headers. Thank you Greg Schafer.

  • November 10, 2005

    • [ken] - Added Data/Dumper to temp perl modules, for coreutils testsuite. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [ken] - Removed POSIX VERSION information from coreutils page Thank you G Moko.

    • [jim] - Added text for multilib kernel build requirements.

  • November 9, 2005

    • [manuel] - Stop Udev from killing udevd processes on the system and removed udevdir=/dev. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [manuel] - Install the binaries from Less to /usr/bin instead of /bin. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [manuel] - Removed SBUs and disk usage information.

    • [jim] - Added missing utmp group. Thank you William Zhou.

  • November 8, 2005

    • [jim] - Removed make headers -C bfd from Binutils. Thank you Robert Day.

  • November 7, 2005

    • [manuel] - Remove the optimization related warnings from the toolchain packages. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [manuel] - Install Vim's documentation to /usr/share/doc/vim-7.0 instead of /usr/share/vim/vim64/doc. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [manuel] - Correct the instructions for running the Module-Init-Tools' testsuite. Ported from LFS-SVN.

    • [jim] - Removed unnecessary linking libc sed in gcc-final in cross-tools. Recommendation from Erik-Jan, via cross-lfs list.

  • November 6, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to Coreutils 5.93.

    • [jim] - Updated to Procps 3.2.6.

    • [jim] - Updated to Man-Pages 2.13.

  • November 5, 2005

    • [jim] - Updated to psmisc 21.8.

  • November 3, 2005

    • [jim] - Fixes added to coreutils. Coreutils was install locales to /locale. Added fixes for dircolors and md5sum also.

  • October 31, 2005

    • [jim] - Now an official project. Resetting all Changelogs.

Branch Synced from the Release of LFS 6.0 on February 23rd, 2005

1.4. Changelog for Alpha

Below is a list of changes specifics for this architecture made since the previous release of the book. For general changes see Master Changelog,

Changelog Entries:

  • June 28, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Updated the aboot-fixes patch to -4.

  • June 25, 2006

    • [jciccone] - Added a patch to glibc and the kernel that fixes a problem with some of the inline assembler.

    • [jciccone] - Updated the aboot-fixes patch to -3.

  • January 5, 2006

    • [jim] - Added patch to fix Glibc. See http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1458.

  • October 31, 2005

    • [jim] - Now an official project. Resetting all Changelogs.

1.5. Resources

1.5.1. FAQ

If during the building of the CLFS system you encounter any errors, have any questions, or think there is a typo in the book, please start by consulting the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that is located at http://trac.cross-lfs.org/wiki/faq.

1.5.2. Mailing Lists

The cross-lfs.org server hosts a number of mailing lists used for the development of the CLFS project. These lists include the main development and support lists, among others. If the FAQ does not contain your answer, you can search the CLFS lists via The Mail Archive http://www.mail-archive.com. You can find the mail lists with the following link:

http://www.mail-archive.com/index.php?hunt=clfs

For information on the different lists, how to subscribe, archive locations, and additional information, visit http://trac.cross-lfs.org/wiki/lists.

1.5.3. News Server

Cross-LFS does not maintain it's own News Server, but we do provide access via gmane.org http://gmane.org. If you want to subscribe to the Cross-LFS via a newsreader you can utilize gmane.org. You can find the game search for CLFS with the following link:

http://dir.gmane.org/search.php?match=clfs

1.5.4. IRC

Several members of the CLFS community offer assistance on our community Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. Before using this support, please make sure that your question is not already answered in the CLFS FAQ or the mailing list archives. You can find the IRC network at chat.freenode.net. The support channel for cross-lfs is named #cross-lfs. If you need to show people the output of your problems, please use http://pastebin.cross-lfs.org and reference the pastebin URL when asking your questions.

1.5.5. Mirror Sites

The CLFS project has a number of world-wide mirrors to make accessing the website and downloading the required packages more convenient. Please visit the CLFS website at http://trac.cross-lfs.org/wiki/mirrors for mirrors of CLFS.

1.5.6. Contact Information

Please direct all your questions and comments to the CLFS mailing lists (see above).

1.6. Help

If an issue or a question is encountered while working through this book, check the FAQ page at http://trac.cross-lfs.org/wiki/faq#generalfaq. Questions are often already answered there. If your question is not answered on this page, try to find the source of the problem. The following hint will give you some guidance for troubleshooting: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/errors.txt.

We also have a wonderful CLFS community that is willing to offer assistance through the mailing lists and IRC (see the Section 1.5, “Resources” section of this book). However, we get several support questions everyday and many of them can be easily answered by going to the FAQ and by searching the mailing lists first. So for us to offer the best assistance possible, you need to do some research on your own first. This allows us to focus on the more unusual support needs. If your searches do not produce a solution, please include all relevant information (mentioned below) in your request for help.

1.6.1. Things to Mention

Apart from a brief explanation of the problem being experienced, the essential things to include in any request for help are:

  • The version of the book being used (in this case 1.0.0)

  • The host distribution and version being used to create CLFS.

  • The architecture of the host and target.

  • The value of the ${CLFS_HOST}, ${CLFS_TARGET}, ${BUILD32}, and ${BUILD64} environment variables.

  • The package or section in which the problem was encountered.

  • The exact error message or symptom received. See Section 1.6.3, “Compilation Problems” below for an example.

  • Note whether you have deviated from the book at all. A package version change or even a minor change to any command is considered deviation.

Note

Deviating from this book does not mean that we will not help you. After all, the CLFS project is about personal preference. Be upfront about any changes to the established procedure—this helps us evaluate and determine possible causes of your problem.

1.6.2. Configure Script Problems

If something goes wrong while running the configure script, review the config.log file. This file may contain the errors you encountered during configure. It often logs errors that may have not been printed to the screen. Include only the relevant lines if you need to ask for help.

1.6.3. Compilation Problems

Both the screen output and the contents of various files are useful in determining the cause of compilation problems. The screen output from the configure script and the make run can be helpful. It is not necessary to include the entire output, but do include enough of the relevant information. Below is an example of the type of information to include from the screen output from make:

gcc -DALIASPATH=\"/mnt/clfs/usr/share/locale:.\"
-DLOCALEDIR=\"/mnt/clfs/usr/share/locale\"
-DLIBDIR=\"/mnt/clfs/usr/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/mnt/clfs/usr/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.
-g -O2 -c getopt1.c
gcc -g -O2 -static -o make ar.o arscan.o commands.o dir.o
expand.o file.o function.o getopt.o implicit.o job.o main.o
misc.o read.o remake.o rule.o signame.o variable.o vpath.o
default.o remote-stub.o version.o opt1.o
-lutil job.o: In function `load_too_high':
/clfs/tmp/make-3.79.1/job.c:1565: undefined reference
to `getloadavg'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [make] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/clfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/clfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2

In this case, many people would just include the bottom section:

make [2]: *** [make] Error 1

This is not enough information to properly diagnose the problem because it only notes that something went wrong, not what went wrong. The entire section, as in the example above, is what should be saved because it includes the command that was executed and the associated error message(s).

An excellent article about asking for help on the Internet is available online at http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html. Read and follow the hints in this document to increase the likelihood of getting the help you need.

Part II. Preparing for the Build

Chapter 2. Preparing a New Partition

2.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the partition which will host the CLFS system is prepared. We will create the partition itself, create a file system on it, and mount it.

2.2. Creating a New Partition

Like most other operating systems, CLFS is usually installed on a dedicated partition. The recommended approach to building a CLFS system is to use an available empty partition or, if you have enough unpartitioned space, to create one. However, if your building for a different architecture you can simply build everything in “/mnt/clfs” and transfer it to your target machine.

A minimal system requires around 1.5 gigabytes (GB). This is enough to store all the source tarballs and compile the packages. However, if the CLFS system is intended to be the primary Linux system, additional software will probably be installed which will require additional space (2-3 GB). The CLFS system itself will not take up this much room. A large portion of this requirement is to provide sufficient free temporary storage. Compiling packages can require a lot of disk space which will be reclaimed after the package is installed.

Because there is not always enough Random Access Memory (RAM) available for compilation processes, it is a good idea to use a small disk partition as swap space. This is used by the kernel to store seldom-used data and leave more memory available for active processes. The swap partition for an CLFS system can be the same as the one used by the host system, in which case it is not necessary to create another one.

Start a disk partitioning program such as cfdisk or fdisk with a command line option naming the hard disk on which the new partition will be created—for example /dev/hda for the primary Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) disk. Create a Linux native partition and a swap partition, if needed. Please refer to cfdisk(8) or fdisk(8) if you do not yet know how to use the programs.

Remember the designation of the new partition (e.g., hda5). This book will refer to this as the CLFS partition. Also remember the designation of the swap partition. These names will be needed later for the /etc/fstab file.

On a Alpha system a bsd disklabel is required. To create this disklabel use the following commands:

fdisk /dev/[yyy]

Then use option b to create the bsd disklabel. Before you exit use the w option to write the partition table.

2.3. Creating a File System on the Partition

Now that a blank partition has been set up, the file system can be created. The most widely-used system in the Linux world is the second extended file system (ext2), but with newer high-capacity hard disks, journaling file systems are becoming increasingly popular. We will create an ext2 file system. Instructions for other file systems can be found at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/filesystems.html.

To create an ext2 file system on the CLFS partition, run the following:

mke2fs /dev/[xxx]

Replace [xxx] with the name of the CLFS partition (hda5 in our previous example).

Note

Some host distributions use custom features in their filesystem creation tools (E2fsprogs). This can cause problems when booting into your new CLFS system, as those features will not be supported by the CLFS-installed E2fsprogs; you will get an error similar to unsupported filesystem features, upgrade your e2fsprogs. To check if your host system uses custom enhancements, run the following command:

debugfs -R feature /dev/[xxx]

If the output contains features other than: dir_index; filetype; large_file; resize_inode or sparse_super then your host system may have custom enhancements. In that case, to avoid later problems, you should compile the stock E2fsprogs package and use the resulting binaries to re-create the filesystem on your CLFS partition:

cd /tmp
tar xjf /path/to/sources/e2fsprogs-1.39.tar.bz2
cd e2fsprogs-1.39
mkdir build
cd build
../configure
make #note that we intentionally don't 'make install' here!
./misc/mke2fs /dev/[xxx]
cd /tmp
rm -rf e2fsprogs-1.39

If a swap partition was created, it will need to be initialized for use by issuing the command below. If you are using an existing swap partition, there is no need to format it.

mkswap /dev/[yyy]

Replace [yyy] with the name of the swap partition.

2.4. Mounting the New Partition

Now that a file system has been created, the partition needs to be made accessible. In order to do this, the partition needs to be mounted at a chosen mount point. For the purposes of this book, it is assumed that the file system is mounted under /mnt/clfs, but the directory choice is up to you.

Choose a mount point and assign it to the CLFS environment variable by running:

export CLFS=/mnt/clfs

Next, create the mount point and mount the CLFS file system by running:

mkdir -pv ${CLFS}
mount -v /dev/[xxx] ${CLFS}

Replace [xxx] with the designation of the CLFS partition.

If using multiple partitions for CLFS (e.g., one for / and another for /usr), mount them using:

mkdir -pv ${CLFS}
mount -v /dev/[xxx] ${CLFS}
mkdir -v ${CLFS}/usr
mount -v /dev/[yyy] ${CLFS}/usr

Replace [xxx] and [yyy] with the appropriate partition names.

Ensure that this new partition is not mounted with permissions that are too restrictive (such as the nosuid, nodev, or noatime options). Run the mount command without any parameters to see what options are set for the mounted CLFS partition. If nosuid, nodev, and/or noatime are set, the partition will need to be remounted.

Now that there is an established place to work, it is time to download the packages.

Chapter 3. Packages and Patches

3.1. Introduction

This chapter includes a list of packages that need to be downloaded for building a basic Linux system. The listed version numbers correspond to versions of the software that are known to work, and this book is based on their use. We highly recommend not using newer versions because the build commands for one version may not work with a newer version. The newest package versions may also have problems that require work-arounds. These work-arounds will be developed and stabilized in the development version of the book.

Download locations may not always be accessible. If a download location has changed since this book was published, Google (http://www.google.com/) provides a useful search engine for most packages. If this search is unsuccessful, try one of the alternative means of downloading discussed at http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/.

Downloaded packages and patches will need to be stored somewhere that is conveniently available throughout the entire build. A working directory is also required to unpack the sources and build them. ${CLFS}/sources can be used both as the place to store the tarballs and patches and as a working directory. By using this directory, the required elements will be located on the CLFS partition and will be available during all stages of the building process.

To create this directory, execute, as user root, the following command before starting the download session:

mkdir -v ${CLFS}/sources

Make this directory writable and sticky. When a directory is marked “sticky”, that means that even if multiple users have write permission on that directory, any file within that directory can only be deleted or modified by its owner. The following command will enable the write and sticky modes:

chmod -v a+wt ${CLFS}/sources

3.2. All Packages

Download or otherwise obtain the following packages:

Autoconf (2.59) - 904 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.59.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 1ee40f7a676b3cfdc0e3f7cd81551b5f

Automake (1.9.6) - 748 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.9.6.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: c11b8100bb311492d8220378fd8bf9e0

Bash (3.1) - 2,475 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-3.1.tar.gz

MD5 sum: ef5304c4b22aaa5088972c792ed45d72

Bash Documentation (3.1) - 2,013 KB:

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-doc-3.1.tar.gz

MD5 sum: a8c517c6a7b21b8b855190399c5935ae

Binutils (2.17) - 13,496 KB:

Home page: http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.17.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: e26e2e06b6e4bf3acf1dc8688a94c0d1

Bison (2.3) - 1,060 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-2.3.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: c18640c6ec31a169d351e3117ecce3ec

Bzip2 (1.0.3) - 654 KB:

Home page: http://www.bzip.org/

Download: http://www.bzip.org/1.0.3/bzip2-1.0.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 8a716bebecb6e647d2e8a29ea5d8447f

CLFS-Bootscripts (1.0) - 28 KB:

Download: http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/bootscripts-cross-lfs-1.0.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 79bff3247411589d7de51fdaea9578bd

Coreutils (5.96) - 4,960 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-5.96.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: bf55d069d82128fd754a090ce8b5acff

DejaGNU (1.4.4) - 1,056 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/dejagnu/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/dejagnu/dejagnu-1.4.4.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 053f18fd5d00873de365413cab17a666

Diffutils (2.8.7) - 1,034 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/

Download: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/diffutils-2.8.7.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 18d6587cb915e7aa110a5d463d6ed156

E2fsprogs (1.39) - 3,612 KB:

Home page: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.39.tar.gz?download

MD5 sum: 06f7806782e357797fad1d34b7ced0c6

Expect (5.43.0) - 514 KB:

Home page: http://expect.nist.gov

Download: http://expect.nist.gov/src/expect-5.43.0.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 43e1dc0e0bc9492cf2e1a6f59f276bc3

File (4.17) - 544 KB:

Download: ftp://ftp.gw.com/mirrors/pub/unix/file/file-4.17.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 50919c65e0181423d66bb25d7fe7b0fd

Note

File (4.17) may no longer be available at the listed location. The site administrators of the master download location occasionally remove older versions when new ones are released. An alternative download location that may have the correct version available is http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/.

Findutils (4.2.27) - 1,097 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/findutils/findutils-4.2.27.tar.gz

MD5 sum: f1e0ddf09f28f8102ff3b90f3b5bc920

Flex (2.5.33) - 680 KB:

Home page: http://flex.sourceforge.net

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/flex/flex-2.5.33.tar.bz2?download

MD5 sum: 343374a00b38d9e39d1158b71af37150

Gawk (3.1.5) - 1,716 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-3.1.5.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 5703f72d0eea1d463f735aad8222655f

GCC (4.1.1) - 38,300 KB:

Home page: http://gcc.gnu.org/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-4.1.1/gcc-4.1.1.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: ad9f97a4d04982ccf4fd67cb464879f3

Gettext (0.14.5) - 6,940 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/gettext-0.14.5.tar.gz

MD5 sum: e2f6581626a22a0de66dce1d81d00de3

Glibc (2.4) - 14,847 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.4.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 7e9a88dcd41fbc53801dbe5bdacaf245

Grep (2.5.1a) - 516 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/grep/grep-2.5.1a.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 52202fe462770fa6be1bb667bd6cf30c

Groff (1.19.2) - 2,836 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.19.2.tar.gz

MD5 sum: f7c9cf2e4b9967d3af167d7c9fadaae4

Gzip (1.3.5) - 324 KB:

Home page: http://www.gzip.org/

Download: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/gzip-1.3.5.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 3d6c191dfd2bf307014b421c12dc8469

Iana-Etc (2.10) - 184 KB:

Home page: http://www.sethwklein.net/projects/iana-etc/

Download: http://www.sethwklein.net/projects/iana-etc/downloads/iana-etc-2.10.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 53dea53262b281322143c744ca60ffbb

Inetutils (1.4.2) - 1019 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/inetutils/inetutils-1.4.2.tar.gz

MD5 sum: df0909a586ddac2b7a0d62795eea4206

IPRoute2 (2.6.16-060323) - 378 KB:

Home page: http://linux-net.osdl.org/index.php/Iproute2

Download: http://developer.osdl.org/dev/iproute2/download/iproute2-2.6.16-060323.tar.gz

MD5 sum: f31d4516b35bbfeaa72c762f5959e97c

Kbd (1.12) - 618 KB:

Download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kbd/kbd-1.12.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 069d1175b4891343b107a8ac2b4a39f6

Less (394) - 286 KB:

Home page: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/

Download: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/less-394.tar.gz

MD5 sum: a9f072ccefa0d315b325f3e9cdbd4b97

Libtool (1.5.22) - 2,854 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/libtool-1.5.22.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 8e0ac9797b62ba4dcc8a2fb7936412b0

Linux (2.6.17.13) - 40,320 KB:

Home page: http://www.kernel.org/

Download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.17.13.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 834885b3ad9988b966570bee92459572

Linux-Headers (2.6.17.13-09092006) - 1,576 KB:

Home page: http://headers.cross-lfs.org/

Download: http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/linux-headers-2.6.17.13-09092006.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: bfda0e9440dd76e6e35fdce79c9b0bf6

M4 (1.4.4) - 300 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.4.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: eb93bfbcb12cf00165583302bb31a822

Make (3.81) - 1,125 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/make-3.81.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 354853e0b2da90c527e35aabb8d6f1e6

Man (1.6d) - 268 KB:

Home page: http://primates.ximian.com/~flucifredi/man/

Download: http://primates.ximian.com/~flucifredi/man/man-1.6d.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 36d3f65bcc10f0754a3234e00d92ad6d

Man-pages (2.33) - 1,752 KB:

Download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/man-pages-2.33.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: e9f61ec73b5390c582530da173c12b10

Mktemp (1.5) - 69 KB:

Home page: http://www.mktemp.org/

Download: ftp://ftp.mktemp.org/pub/mktemp/mktemp-1.5.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 9a35c59502a228c6ce2be025fc6e3ff2

Module-Init-Tools (3.2.2) - 166 KB:

Download: http://www.kerneltools.org/pub/downloads/module-init-tools/module-init-tools-3.2.2.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: a1ad0a09d3231673f70d631f3f5040e9

Ncurses (5.5) - 2,260 KB:

Home page: http://dickey.his.com/ncurses/

Download: ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-5.5.tar.gz

MD5 sum: e73c1ac10b4bfc46db43b2ddfd6244ef

Patch (2.5.9) - 198 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/patch/

Download: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/patch-2.5.9.tar.gz

MD5 sum: dacfb618082f8d3a2194601193cf8716

Perl (5.8.8) - 9,887 KB:

Home page: http://www.perl.com/

Download: http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.8.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: a377c0c67ab43fd96eeec29ce19e8382

Procps (3.2.6) - 273 KB:

Home page: http://procps.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://procps.sourceforge.net/procps-3.2.6.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 7ce39ea27d7b3da0e8ad74dd41d06783

Psmisc (22.2) - 239 KB:

Home page: http://psmisc.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/psmisc/psmisc-22.2.tar.gz?download

MD5 sum: 77737c817a40ef2c160a7194b5b64337

Readline (5.1) - 1,983 KB:

Home page: http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/readline-5.1.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 7ee5a692db88b30ca48927a13fd60e46

Sed (4.1.5) - 781 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/sed/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.1.5.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 7a1cbbbb3341287308e140bd4834c3ba

Shadow (4.0.16) - 1,412 KB:

Download: ftp://ftp.pld.org.pl/software/shadow/shadow-4.0.16.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 1d91f7479143d1d705b94180c0d4874b

Note

Shadow (4.0.16) may no longer be available at the listed location. The site administrators of the master download location occasionally remove older versions when new ones are released. An alternative download location that may have the correct version available is http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/.

Sysklogd (1.4.1) - 80 KB:

Home page: http://www.infodrom.org/projects/sysklogd/

Download: http://www.infodrom.org/projects/sysklogd/download/sysklogd-1.4.1.tar.gz

MD5 sum: d214aa40beabf7bdb0c9b3c64432c774

Sysvinit (2.86) - 97 KB:

Download: ftp://ftp.cistron.nl/pub/people/miquels/sysvinit/sysvinit-2.86.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 7d5d61c026122ab791ac04c8a84db967

Tar (1.15.1) - 1,574 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.15.1.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 57da3c38f8e06589699548a34d5a5d07

Tcl (8.4.12) - 3,419 KB:

Home page: http://tcl.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tcl/tcl8.4.12-src.tar.gz?download

MD5 sum: 7480432d8730263f267952788eb4839b

Texinfo (4.8) - 1,487 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-4.8.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 6ba369bbfe4afaa56122e65b3ee3a68c

Tree (1.5.0) - 26 KB:

Download: ftp://mama.indstate.edu/linux/tree/tree-1.5.0.tgz

MD5 sum: e0d090c564e7ea5afa16bac80620c7e0

Udev (096) - 192 KB:

Home page: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html

Download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-096.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: f4effef7807ce1dc91ab581686ef197b

Udev Cross-LFS Rules (1.0-3) - 12 KB:

Download: http://cross-lfs.org/files/packages/1.0.0/udev-cross-lfs-1.0-3.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 0c9b9e24a37b9501bcd4889da71cf313

Util-linux (2.12r) - 1,339 KB:

Download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/util-linux-2.12r.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: af9d9e03038481fbf79ea3ac33f116f9

Vim (7.0) - 6,422 KB:

Home page: http://www.vim.org

Download: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unix/vim-7.0.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 4ca69757678272f718b1041c810d82d8

Vim (7.0) language files (optional) - 1,153 KB:

Download: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/extra/vim-7.0-lang.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 6d43efaff570b5c86e76b833ea0c6a04

Zlib (1.2.3) - 485 KB:

Home page: http://www.zlib.net/

Download: http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: debc62758716a169df9f62e6ab2bc634

Total size of these packages: about 180 MB

3.3. Additional Packages for Alpha

Aboot (0.9b) - 112 KB:

Home page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/aboot

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/aboot/aboot-0.9b.tar.bz2?download

MD5 sum: 5f16edbf4e9d52cd191adc4d4b6a5327

Total size of these packages: about 112 KB

3.4. Needed Patches

In addition to the packages, several patches are also required. These patches correct any mistakes in the packages that should be fixed by the maintainer. The patches also make small modifications to make the packages easier to work with. The following patches will be needed to build a CLFS system:

Bash Fixes Patch - 23 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/bash-3.1-fixes-8.patch

MD5 sum: bc337045fa4c5839babf0306cc9df6d0

Binutils Posix Patch - 4.9 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/binutils-2.17-posix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 7e42a8edc0c59246bbc58c428256113c

Bzip2 Documentation Patch - 1.7 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/bzip2-1.0.3-install_docs-1.patch

MD5 sum: 9e5dfbf4814b71ef986b872c9af84488

Bzip2 Bzdiff Remove Tempfile - 1.8 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/bzip2-1.0.3-remove_tempfile-1.patch

MD5 sum: bcadb0ce282c96af15a86a2ccdac0765

Bzip2 Bzgrep Security Fixes Patch - 1.3 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/bzip2-1.0.3-bzgrep_security-1.patch

MD5 sum: 4eae50e4fd690498f23d3057dfad7066

Coreutils Suppress Uptime, Kill, Su Patch - 13 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/coreutils-5.96-suppress_uptime_kill_su-1.patch

MD5 sum: 227d41a6d0f13c31375153eae91e913d

Expect Spawn Patch - 6.9 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/expect-5.43.0-spawn-2.patch

MD5 sum: 7706e1e8238c72eed8dc905d6f3b6aa9

Gawk Segfault Patch - 1.3 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gawk-3.1.5-segfault_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 7679530d88bf3eb56c42eb6aba342ddb

GCC Cross Search Paths Patch - 2 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gcc-4.1.1-cross_search_paths-1.patch

MD5 sum: 541fe39d228ddaa0d8396a35ec3a0ada

GCC PR20425 Patch - 36 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gcc-4.1.1-PR20425-1.patch

MD5 sum: 95535bda8e4d37d30251db0b121b5374

GCC Posix Patch - 9 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gcc-4.1.1-posix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 0d88068740a0e00780891f2cb905b808

Glibc iconv Fix - 4 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/glibc-2.4-iconv_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 9c8e681226ccf7a1f25c6467674f915e

Glibc Disable linking with libgcc_eh.a - 1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/glibc-2.4-libgcc_eh-1.patch

MD5 sum: e5122ea7b89a5f22615eaadf8e46b334

Glibc Localedef Segfault - 1.9 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/glibc-2.4-localedef_segfault-1.patch

MD5 sum: 42452abc6196789e0a83afa1ca7e6e4e

Gzip Security Fix Patch - 2 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gzip-1.3.5-security_fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: f107844f01fc49446654ae4a8f8a0728

Inetutils inet_addr Patch - 4 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/inetutils-1.4.2-inet_addr_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: a33267b7a4e0d303a6f8dfeafde7bd8e

Inetutils GCC 4.x Fixes Patch - 4.1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/inetutils-1.4.2-gcc4_fixes-3.patch

MD5 sum: 5204fbc503c9fb6a8e353583818db6b9

Inetutils No-Server-Man-Pages Patch - 1.3 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/inetutils-1.4.2-no_server_man_pages-1.patch

MD5 sum: eb477f532bc6d26e7025fcfc4452511d

KBD GCC 4.x Fixes Patch - 1.5 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/kbd-1.12-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: 615bc1e381ab646f04d8045751ed1f69

Linux Tulip Update Patch - 8 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/linux-2.6.17.13-tulip-1.patch

MD5 sum: 0dd7027a8cb8e59c74c24ff0a8f45f3b

Mktemp Tempfile Patch - 3.6 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/mktemp-1.5-add_tempfile-3.patch

MD5 sum: 65d73faabe3f637ad79853b460d30a19

Perl Libc Patch - 4 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/perl-5.8.8-libc-2.patch

MD5 sum: 3bf8aef1fb6eb6110405e699e4141f99

Readline Fixes Patch - 2.1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/readline-5.1-fixes-3.patch

MD5 sum: e30963cd5c6f6a11a23344af36cfa38c

Sysklogd Fixes Patch - 28 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/sysklogd-1.4.1-fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: 508104f058d1aef26b3bc8059821935f

Tar GCC-4.x Fix Patch - 1.2 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/tar-1.15.1-gcc4_fix_tests-1.patch

MD5 sum: 8e286a1394e6bcf2907f13801770a72a

Tar Security Fix Patch - 3.9 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/tar-1.15.1-security_fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: 19876e726d9cec9ce1508e3af74dc22e

Tar Sparse Fix Patch - 1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/tar-1.15.1-sparse_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 9e3623f7c88d8766878ecb27c980d86a

Texinfo Tempfile Fix Patch - 2.2 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/texinfo-4.8-tempfile_fix-2.patch

MD5 sum: 559bda136a2ac7777ecb67511227af85

Util-linux Cramfs Patch - 2.8 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/util-linux-2.12r-cramfs-1.patch

MD5 sum: 1c3f40b30e12738eb7b66a35b7374572

Util-linux GCC 4.x Patch - 1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/util-linux-2.12r-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: 6c030921dc9b92daf688f12a4ee6f6e0

Util-linux Missing Header Patch - 1 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/util-linux-2.12r-missing_header-1.patch

MD5 sum: 33ccc15d2e92caa6189b044f573fdcda

Vim Fixes Patch - 32 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/vim-7.0-fixes-5.patch

MD5 sum: 6e179cfe811d105de4fd9156a0ef6699

Zlib fPIC Patch - 3.2 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/zlib-1.2.3-fPIC-1.patch

MD5 sum: 545d60b20bfde6f53023de44438cef59

Total size of these patches: about 214.7 KB

In addition to the above required patches, there exist a number of optional patches created by the CLFS community. These optional patches solve minor problems or enable functionality that is not enabled by default. Feel free to peruse the patches database located at http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/ and acquire any additional patches to suit the system needs.

3.5. Additional Patches for Alpha

Aboot Patch - 100 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/aboot-0.9b-kernel26_gcc4_fixes-4.patch

MD5 sum: 2b83c5aa0c6edada9ab04cb6331b0806

GCC Specs Patch - 15 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/gcc-4.1.1-specs-1.patch

MD5 sum: a17be8ccfb978e73f382be5093dd8abd

Glibc ioperm Fix Patch - 4 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/glibc-2.4-alpha_ioperm_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 3a50c4055d2f72248eb656eb2d15edec

Linux IO Fix Patch - 4 KB:

Download: http://patches.cross-lfs.org/1.0.0/linux-2.6.17.13-alpha_io_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: 67f66a5d252e5b82f4aeb3b06f4e5735

Total size of these patches: about 123 KB

Chapter 4. Final Preparations

4.1. About ${CLFS}

Throughout this book, the environment variable CLFS will be used several times. It is paramount that this variable is always defined. It should be set to the mount point chosen for the CLFS partition. Check that the CLFS variable is set up properly with:

echo ${CLFS}

Make sure the output shows the path to the CLFS partition's mount point, which is /mnt/clfs if the provided example was followed. If the output is incorrect, the variable can be set with:

export CLFS=/mnt/clfs

Having this variable set is beneficial in that commands such as install -dv ${CLFS}/tools can be typed literally. The shell will automatically replace “${CLFS}” with “/mnt/clfs” (or whatever the variable was set to) when it processes the command line.

If you haven't created the ${CLFS} directory, do so at this time by issuing the following commands:

install -dv ${CLFS}

Do not forget to check that ${CLFS} is set whenever you leave and reenter the current working environment (as when doing a “su” to root or another user).

4.2. Creating the ${CLFS}/tools Directory

All programs compiled in Constructing a Temporary System will be installed under ${CLFS}/tools to keep them separate from the programs compiled in Installing Basic System Software. The programs compiled here are temporary tools and will not be a part of the final CLFS system. By keeping these programs in a separate directory, they can easily be discarded later after their use. This also prevents these programs from ending up in the host production directories (easy to do by accident in Constructing a Temporary System).

Create the required directory by running the following as root:

install -dv ${CLFS}/tools

The next step is to create a /tools symlink on the host system. This will point to the newly-created directory on the CLFS partition. Run this command as root as well:

ln -sv ${CLFS}/tools /

Note

The above command is correct. The ln command has a few syntactic variations, so be sure to check info coreutils ln and ln(1) before reporting what you may think is an error.

The created symlink enables the toolchain to be compiled so that it always refers to /tools, meaning that the compiler, assembler, and linker will work. This will provide a common place for our temporary tools system.

4.3. Creating the ${CLFS}/cross-tools Directory

The cross-binutils and cross-compiler built in Constructing Cross-Compile Tools will be installed under ${CLFS}/cross-tools to keep them separate from the host programs. The programs compiled here are cross-tools and will not be a part of the final CLFS system or the temp-system. By keeping these programs in a separate directory, they can easily be discarded later after their use.

Create the required directory by running the following as root:

install -dv ${CLFS}/cross-tools

The next step is to create a /cross-tools symlink on the host system. This will point to the newly-created directory on the CLFS partition. Run this command as root as well:

ln -sv ${CLFS}/cross-tools /

The symlink isn't technically necessary (though the book's instructions do assume its existence), but is there mainly for consistency (because /tools is also symlinked to ${CLFS}/tools) and to simplify the installation of the cross-compile tools.

4.4. Adding the CLFS User

When logged in as user root, making a single mistake can damage or destroy a system. Therefore, we recommend building the packages as an unprivileged user. You could use your own user name, but to make it easier to set up a clean work environment, create a new user called clfs as a member of a new group (also named clfs) and use this user during the installation process. As root, issue the following commands to add the new user:

groupadd clfs
useradd -s /bin/bash -g clfs -m -k /dev/null clfs

The meaning of the command line options:

-s /bin/bash

This makes bash the default shell for user clfs.

-g clfs

This option adds user clfs to group clfs.

-m

This creates a home directory for clfs.

-k /dev/null

This parameter prevents possible copying of files from a skeleton directory (default is /etc/skel) by changing the input location to the special null device.

clfs

This is the actual name for the created group and user.

To log in as clfs (as opposed to switching to user clfs when logged in as root, which does not require the clfs user to have a password), give clfs a password:

passwd clfs

Grant clfs full access to ${CLFS}/cross-tools and ${CLFS}/tools by making clfs the directorys' owner:

chown -v clfs ${CLFS}/tools
chown -v clfs ${CLFS}/cross-tools

If a separate working directory was created as suggested, give user clfs ownership of this directory:

chown -v clfs ${CLFS}/sources

Next, login as user clfs. This can be done via a virtual console, through a display manager, or with the following substitute user command:

su - clfs

The “-” instructs su to start a login shell as opposed to a non-login shell. The difference between these two types of shells can be found in detail in bash(1) and info bash.

4.5. Setting Up the Environment

Set up a good working environment by creating two new startup files for the bash shell. While logged in as user clfs, issue the following command to create a new .bash_profile:

cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
exec env -i HOME=${HOME} TERM=${TERM} PS1='\u:\w\$ ' /bin/bash
EOF

When logged on as user clfs, the initial shell is usually a login shell which reads the /etc/profile of the host (probably containing some settings and environment variables) and then .bash_profile. The exec env -i.../bin/bash command in the .bash_profile file replaces the running shell with a new one with a completely empty environment, except for the HOME, TERM, and PS1 variables. This ensures that no unwanted and potentially hazardous environment variables from the host system leak into the build environment. The technique used here achieves the goal of ensuring a clean environment.

The new instance of the shell is a non-login shell, which does not read the /etc/profile or .bash_profile files, but rather reads the .bashrc file instead. Create the .bashrc file now:

cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
set +h
umask 022
CLFS=/mnt/clfs
LC_ALL=POSIX
PATH=/cross-tools/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
export CLFS LC_ALL PATH
EOF

The set +h command turns off bash's hash function. Hashing is ordinarily a useful feature—bash uses a hash table to remember the full path of executable files to avoid searching the PATH time and again to find the same executable. However, the new tools should be used as soon as they are installed. By switching off the hash function, the shell will always search the PATH when a program is to be run. As such, the shell will find the newly compiled tools in /cross-tools as soon as they are available without remembering a previous version of the same program in a different location.

Setting the user file-creation mask (umask) to 022 ensures that newly created files and directories are only writable by their owner, but are readable and executable by anyone (assuming default modes are used by the open(2) system call, new files will end up with permission mode 644 and directories with mode 755).

The CLFS variable should be set to the chosen mount point.

The LC_ALL variable controls the localization of certain programs, making their messages follow the conventions of a specified country. If the host system uses a version of Glibc older than 2.2.4, having LC_ALL set to something other than “POSIX” or “C” (during this chapter) may cause issues if you exit the chroot environment and wish to return later. Setting LC_ALL to “POSIX” or “C” (the two are equivalent) ensures that everything will work as expected in the chroot environment.

By putting /cross-tools/bin at the beginning of the PATH, the cross-compiler built in Constructing Cross-Compile Tools will be picked up by the build process for the temp-system packages before anything that may be installed on the host. This, combined with turning off hashing, helps to ensure that you will be using the cross-compile tools to build the temp-system in /tools.

Finally, to have the environment fully prepared for building the temporary tools, source the just-created user profile:

source ~/.bash_profile

4.6. About the Test Suites

Most packages provide a test suite. Running the test suite for a newly built package is a good idea because it can provide a “sanity check” indicating that everything compiled correctly. A test suite that passes its set of checks usually proves that the package is functioning as the developer intended. It does not, however, guarantee that the package is totally bug free.

It is not possible to run testsuites when cross-compiling, so package installation instructions do not explain how to run testsuites until Installing Basic System Software.

Part III. Make the Cross-Compile Tools

Chapter 5. Constructing Cross-Compile Tools

5.1. Introduction

This chapter shows you how to create cross platform tools.

If for some reason you have to stop and come back later, remember to use the su - clfs command, and it will setup the build environment that you left.

5.1.1. Common Notes

Important

Before issuing the build instructions for a package, the package should be unpacked as user clfs, and a cd into the created directory should be performed. The build instructions assume that the bash shell is in use.

Several of the packages are patched before compilation, but only when the patch is needed to circumvent a problem. A patch is often needed in both this and the next chapters, but sometimes in only one or the other. Therefore, do not be concerned if instructions for a downloaded patch seem to be missing. Warning messages about offset or fuzz may also be encountered when applying a patch. Do not worry about these warnings, as the patch was still successfully applied.

During the compilation of most packages, there will be several warnings that scroll by on the screen. These are normal and can safely be ignored. These warnings are as they appear—warnings about deprecated, but not invalid, use of the C or C++ syntax. C standards change fairly often, and some packages still use the older standard. This is not a problem, but does prompt the warning.

Important

After installing each package, both in this and the next chapters, delete its source and build directories, unless specifically instructed otherwise. Deleting the sources prevents mis-configuration when the same package is reinstalled later.

5.2. Build CFLAGS

CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS must not be set during the building of cross-tools.

To disable CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS use the following commands:

unset CFLAGS
unset CXXFLAGS

Now add these to ~/.bashrc, just in case you have to exit and restart building later:

echo unset CFLAGS >> ~/.bashrc
echo unset CXXFLAGS >> ~/.bashrc

5.3. Build Variables

Setting Host and Target

During the building of the cross-compile tools you will need to set a few variables that will be dependent on your particular needs. The first variable will be the triplet of the HOST machine. You will need to set the CHOST triplet to match your particular needs. To set this information you can issue the following command:

export CLFS_HOST="$(echo $MACHTYPE | sed "s/$(echo $MACHTYPE | cut -d- -f2)/cross/")"

Now we will set our Target Triplet:

export CLFS_TARGET="alpha-unknown-linux-gnu"

Now we will add these to ~/.bashrc, just in case you have to exit and restart building later:

echo export CLFS_HOST=\""${CLFS_HOST}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CLFS_TARGET=\""${CLFS_TARGET}\"" >> ~/.bashrc

5.4. Linux-Headers-2.6.17.13-09092006

The Linux Headers package contains the “sanitized” kernel headers.

5.4.1. Installation of Linux-Headers

Install the header files that are needed for the base build:

install -dv /tools/include
cp -av include/asm-alpha /tools/include/asm
cp -av include/{asm-generic,linux} /tools/include/

Details on this package are located in Section 10.6.2, “Contents of Linux-Headers.”

5.5. Cross Binutils-2.17

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

5.5.1. Installation of Cross Binutils

It is important that Binutils be the first package compiled because both Glibc and GCC perform various tests on the available linker and assembler to determine which of their own features to enable.

To make sure that the proper syntax is used for a couple of tools, apply the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../binutils-2.17-posix-1.patch

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Prepare Binutils for compilation:

../binutils-2.17/configure --prefix=/cross-tools \
    --host=${CLFS_HOST} --target=${CLFS_TARGET} --with-lib-path=/tools/lib \
    --disable-nls --enable-shared --disable-multilib

The meaning of the configure options:

--prefix=/cross-tools

This tells the configure script to prepare to install the package in the /cross-tools directory.

--host=${CLFS_HOST}

When used with --target, this creates a cross-architecture executable that creates files for ${CLFS_TARGET} but runs on ${CLFS_HOST}.

--target=${CLFS_TARGET}

When used with --host, this creates a cross-architecture executable that creates files for ${CLFS_TARGET} but runs on ${CLFS_HOST}.

--with-lib-path=/tools/lib

This tells the configure script to specify the library search path during the compilation of Binutils, resulting in /tools/lib being passed to the linker. This prevents the linker from searching through library directories on the host.

--disable-nls

This disables internationalization as i18n is not needed for the cross-compile tools.

--enable-shared

Enable the creation of the shared libraries.

--disable-multilib

This option disables the building of a multilib capable binutils.

Compile the package:

make configure-host
make

The meaning of the make options:

configure-host

This checks the host environment and makes sure all the necessary tools are available to compile Binutils.

Install the package:

make install

Copy the libiberty.h file to /tools/include directory:

cp -v ../binutils-2.17/include/libiberty.h /tools/include

Details on this package are located in Section 10.9.2, “Contents of Binutils.”

5.6. Glibc-2.4 Headers

The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and closing files, reading and writing files, string handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and so on.

5.6.1. Installation of Glibc Headers

The following sed removes a dependency of gcc 3.4.x from the glibc we are using in cross-lfs. The reason we are changing it is because this only installs the headers, no compiling takes place. In the next Glibc installation, we use the GCC that's built right after this section:

cp -v configure{,.orig}
sed -e 's/3.4/3.[0-9]/g' configure.orig > configure

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

The following lines need to be added to config.cache for Glibc to support NPTL:

echo "libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes" > config.cache
echo "libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes" >> config.cache
echo "libc_cv_mlong_double_128=yes" >> config.cache
echo "libc_cv_alpha_tls=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Glibc for compilation:

CC=gcc ../glibc-2.4/configure --prefix=/tools \
   --host=${CLFS_TARGET} --build=${CLFS_HOST} \
   --disable-sanity-checks --enable-kernel=2.6.0 \
   --with-headers=/tools/include --cache-file=config.cache \
   --with-binutils=/cross-tools/${CLFS_TARGET}/bin

Note

Any error message you see about nptl at this point can safely be ignored.

The meaning of the configure options:

CC=gcc

Tells Glibc to use the host's GCC compiler.

--prefix=/tools

This tells the configure script to prepare to install the package in the /tools directory.

--build=${CLFS_HOST}

When used with --host, this creates a cross-architecture executable that creates files for ${CLFS_TARGET} but runs on ${CLFS_HOST}.

--host=${CLFS_TARGET}

When used with --build, this creates a cross-architecture executable that creates files for ${CLFS_TARGET} but runs on ${CLFS_HOST}.

--disable-sanity-checks

This switch disables any checks that are in place.

--enable-kernel=2.6.0

This tells Glibc to compile the library with support for 2.6.x Linux kernels.

--with-headers=/tools/include

This tells Glibc to compile itself against the headers recently installed to the /tools directory, so that it knows exactly what features the kernel has and can optimize itself accordingly.

--with-binutils=/cross-tools/${CLFS_TARGET}/bin

This tells Glibc to use the Binutils for our specific target architecture.

Now, install the headers:

make install-headers

Some files aren't installed by the above command, so we will copy the additional header files we need.

First we will copy a common file over to /tools/include:

install -dv /tools/include/bits
cp -v bits/stdio_lim.h /tools/include/bits

Now we will create a blank stub file:

touch /tools/include/gnu/stubs.h

Another header is needed for NPTL:

cp -v ../glibc-2.4/nptl/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/alpha/bits/pthreadtypes.h /tools/include/bits/

Details on this package are located in Section 10.7.5, “Contents of Glibc.”

5.7. Cross GCC-4.1.1 - Static

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

5.7.1. Installation of Cross GCC Compiler with Static libgcc and no Threads

Make a couple of essential adjustments to the specs file to ensure GCC uses our build environment:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-specs-1.patch

To make sure that a couple of tools use the proper syntax, apply the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-posix-1.patch

The following patch ensures that gcc does not search the /usr directory for libgcc_s.so when cross-compiling:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-cross_search_paths-1.patch

Change the StartFile Spec to point to the correct library location:

echo "
#undef STARTFILE_PREFIX_SPEC
#define STARTFILE_PREFIX_SPEC \"/tools/lib/\"" >> gcc/config/alpha/linux.h

Now alter gcc's c preprocessor's default include search path to use /tools only:

cp -v gcc/Makefile.in{,.orig}
sed -e "s@\(^CROSS_SYSTEM_HEADER_DIR =\).*@\1 /tools/include@g" \
    gcc/Makefile.in.orig > gcc/Makefile.in

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC for compilation:

../gcc-4.1.1/configure --prefix=/cross-tools \
    --host=${CLFS_HOST} --target=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --with-local-prefix=/tools --disable-nls --disable-shared \
    --disable-threads --enable-languages=c

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-local-prefix=/tools

The purpose of this switch is to remove /usr/local/include from gcc's include search path. This is not absolutely essential, however, it helps to minimize the influence of the host system.

--disable-shared

Disables the creation of the shared libraries.

--disable-threads

This will prevent GCC from looking for the multi-thread include files, since they haven't been created for this architecture yet. GCC will be able to find the multi-thread information after the Glibc headers are created.

--enable-languages=c

This option ensures that only the C compiler is built.

Continue with compiling the package:

make all-gcc

Install the package:

make install-gcc

Details on this package are located in Section 10.10.2, “Contents of GCC.”

5.8. Glibc-2.4

The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and closing files, reading and writing files, string handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and so on.

5.8.1. Installation of Glibc

It should be noted that compiling Glibc in any way other than the method suggested in this book puts the stability of the system at risk.

The following patch fixes some inline assembler in glibc:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-alpha_ioperm_fix-1.patch

Disable linking to libgcc_eh:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-libgcc_eh-1.patch

The following patch fixes an issue that can cause localdef to segfault:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-localedef_segfault-1.patch

The following sed fixes a build issue with Glibc. This will prevent nscd from trying to link to libraries that don't exist:

cp -v nscd/Makefile{,.orig}
sed -e "/nscd_stat.o: sysincludes = # nothing/d" nscd/Makefile.orig > \
    nscd/Makefile

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

The following lines need to be added to config.cache for Glibc to support NPTL:

echo "libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes" > config.cache
echo "libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Glibc for compilation:

BUILD_CC="gcc" CC="${CLFS_TARGET}-gcc" \
    AR="${CLFS_TARGET}-ar" RANLIB="${CLFS_TARGET}-ranlib" \
    ../glibc-2.4/configure --prefix=/tools \
    --host=${CLFS_TARGET} --build=${CLFS_HOST} \
    --disable-profile --enable-add-ons \
    --with-tls --enable-kernel=2.6.0 --with-__thread \
    --with-binutils=/cross-tools/bin --with-headers=/tools/include \
    --cache-file=config.cache

The meaning of the new configure options:

BUILD_CC="gcc"

This sets Glibc to use the current compiler on our system. This is used to create the tools Glibc uses during its build.

CC="${CLFS_TARGET}-gcc"

This forces Glibc to use the GCC compiler that we made for our target architecture.

AR="${CLFS_TARGET}-ar"

This forces Glibc to use the ar utility we made for our target architecture.

RANLIB="${CLFS_TARGET}-ranlib"

This forces Glibc to use the ranlib utility we made for our target architecture.

--disable-profile

This builds the libraries without profiling information. Omit this option if profiling on the temporary tools is necessary.

--enable-add-ons

This tells Glibc to utilize all add-ons that are available.

--with-tls

This tells Glibc to use Thread Local Storage.

--with-__thread

This tells Glibc to use use the __thread for libc and libpthread builds.

--with-binutils=/cross-tools/bin

This tells Glibc to use the Binutils that are specific to our target architecture.

--cache-file=config.cache

This tells Glibc to utilize a premade cache file.

During this stage the following warning might appear:

configure: WARNING:
*** These auxiliary programs are missing or
*** incompatible versions: msgfmt
*** some features will be disabled.
*** Check the INSTALL file for required versions.

The missing or incompatible msgfmt program is generally harmless. This msgfmt program is part of the Gettext package which the host distribution should provide.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.7.5, “Contents of Glibc.”

5.9. GCC-4.1.1 - Cross Compiler Final

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

5.9.1. Installation of GCC Cross Compiler

The following patch fixes the searching of multilib dirs for specs file. The patch standardizes the gcc drivers path iteration functions, ensuring multilib directories are searched in the correct order. This fixes various issues, most noticably with libtool on multilib systems:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-PR20425-1.patch

Make a couple of essential adjustments to the specs file to ensure GCC uses our build environment:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-specs-1.patch

To make sure that a couple of tools use the proper syntax, apply the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-posix-1.patch

The following patch ensures that gcc does not search the /usr directory for libgcc_s.so when cross-compiling:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-cross_search_paths-1.patch

Change the StartFile Spec to point to the correct library location:

echo "
#undef STARTFILE_PREFIX_SPEC
#define STARTFILE_PREFIX_SPEC \"/tools/lib/\"" >> gcc/config/alpha/linux.h

Now alter gcc's c preprocessor's default include search path to use /tools only:

cp -v gcc/Makefile.in{,.orig}
sed -e "s@\(^CROSS_SYSTEM_HEADER_DIR =\).*@\1 /tools/include@g" \
    gcc/Makefile.in.orig > gcc/Makefile.in

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC for compilation:

../gcc-4.1.1/configure --prefix=/cross-tools \
    --target=${CLFS_TARGET} --host=${CLFS_HOST} --disable-multilib \
    --with-local-prefix=/tools --disable-nls --enable-shared \
    --enable-languages=c,c++ --enable-__cxa_atexit \
    --enable-c99 --enable-long-long --enable-threads=posix

The meaning of the new configure options:

--enable-languages=c,c++

This option ensures that only the C and C++ compilers are built.

--enable-__cxa_atexit

This option allows use of __cxa_atexit, rather than atexit, to register C++ destructors for local statics and global objects and is essential for fully standards-compliant handling of destructors. It also affects the C++ ABI and therefore results in C++ shared libraries and C++ programs that are interoperable with other Linux distributions.

--enable-c99

Enable C99 support for C programs.

--enable-long-long

Enables long long support in the compiler.

--enable-threads=posix

This enables C++ exception handling for multi-threaded code.

Continue with compiling the package:

make AS_FOR_TARGET="${CLFS_TARGET}-as" \
    LD_FOR_TARGET="${CLFS_TARGET}-ld"

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.10.2, “Contents of GCC.”

Part IV. Building the Basic Tools

Chapter 6. Constructing a Temporary System

6.1. Introduction

This chapter shows how to compile and install a minimal Linux system. This system will contain just enough tools to start constructing the final CLFS system in Installing Basic System Software and allow a working environment with more user convenience than a minimum environment would.

The tools in this chapter are cross-compiled using the toolchain in /cross-tools and will be installed under the ${CLFS}/tools directory to keep them separate from the files installed in Installing Basic System Software and the host production directories. Since the packages compiled here are temporary, we do not want them to pollute the soon-to-be CLFS system.

Check one last time that the CLFS environment variable is set up properly:

echo ${CLFS}

Make sure the output shows the path to the CLFS partition's mount point, which is /mnt/clfs, using our example.

During this section of the build you will see several WARNING messages like the one below. It is safe to ignore these messages.

configure: WARNING: If you wanted to set the --build type, don't use --host.
    If a cross compiler is detected then cross compile mode will be used.

6.2. Build Variables

Setup target-specific variables for the compiler and linkers:

export CC="${CLFS_TARGET}-gcc"
export CXX="${CLFS_TARGET}-g++"
export AR="${CLFS_TARGET}-ar"
export AS="${CLFS_TARGET}-as"
export RANLIB="${CLFS_TARGET}-ranlib"
export LD="${CLFS_TARGET}-ld"
export STRIP="${CLFS_TARGET}-strip"

Then add the build variables to ~/.bashrc to prevent issues if you stop and come back later:

echo export CC=\""${CC}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export CXX=\""${CXX}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export AR=\""${AR}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export AS=\""${AS}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export RANLIB=\""${RANLIB}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export LD=\""${LD}\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo export STRIP=\""${STRIP}\"" >> ~/.bashrc

6.3. Binutils-2.17

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

6.3.1. Installation of Binutils

To make sure that the proper syntax is used for a couple of tools, apply the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../binutils-2.17-posix-1.patch

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Prepare Binutils for compilation:

../binutils-2.17/configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} --target=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --disable-nls --enable-shared --disable-multilib

Compile the package:

make configure-host
make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.9.2, “Contents of Binutils.”

6.4. GCC-4.1.1

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

6.4.1. Installation of GCC

The following patch fixes the searching of multilib dirs for specs file. The patch standardizes the gcc drivers path iteration functions, ensuring multilib directories are searched in the correct order. This fixes various issues, most noticably with libtool on multilib systems:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-PR20425-1.patch

Make a couple of essential adjustments to the specs file to ensure GCC uses our build environment:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-specs-1.patch

To make sure that a couple of tools use the proper syntax, apply the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-posix-1.patch

The following patch ensures that gcc does not search the /usr directory for libgcc_s.so when cross-compiling:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-cross_search_paths-1.patch

Now we will change cpp's search path not to look in /usr/include:

cp -v gcc/cppdefault.c{,.orig}
sed -e '/#define STANDARD_INCLUDE_DIR/s@"/usr/include"@0@g' \
    gcc/cppdefault.c.orig > gcc/cppdefault.c

Also, we need to set the directory searched by the fixincludes process for system headers, so it won't look at the host's headers:

cp -v gcc/Makefile.in{,.orig}
sed -e 's@\(^NATIVE_SYSTEM_HEADER_DIR =\).*@\1 /tools/include@g' \
    gcc/Makefile.in.orig > gcc/Makefile.in

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Before starting to build GCC, remember to unset any environment variables that override the default optimization flags.

Prepare GCC for compilation:

../gcc-4.1.1/configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} --target=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --with-local-prefix=/tools --enable-long-long --enable-c99 \
    --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-__cxa_atexit \
    --disable-nls --enable-languages=c,c++ --disable-libstdcxx-pch

The meaning of the new configure options:

--disable-libstdcxx-pch

Do not build the pre-compiled header (PCH) for libstdc++. It takes up a lot of space, and we have no use for it.

Compile the package:

make AS_FOR_TARGET="${AS}" \
    LD_FOR_TARGET="${LD}"

Install the package:

make install

Many packages use the name cc to call the C compiler. To satisfy those packages, create a symlink:

ln -sv gcc /tools/bin/cc

Details on this package are located in Section 10.10.2, “Contents of GCC.”

6.5. Ncurses-5.5

The Ncurses package contains libraries for terminal-independent handling of character screens.

6.5.1. Installation of Ncurses

Prepare Ncurses for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --with-shared \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --without-debug --without-ada \
    --enable-overwrite --with-build-cc=gcc

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-shared

This tells Ncurses to create a shared library.

--without-debug

This tells Ncurses not to build with debug information.

--without-ada

This ensures that Ncurses does not build support for the Ada compiler which may be present on the host but will not be available when building the final system.

--enable-overwrite

This tells Ncurses to install its header files into /tools/include, instead of /tools/include/ncurses, to ensure that other packages can find the Ncurses headers successfully.

--with-build-cc=gcc

This tells Ncurses what type of compiler we are using.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.15.2, “Contents of Ncurses.”

6.6. Bash-3.1

The Bash package contains the Bourne-Again SHell.

6.6.1. Installation of Bash

Remove a test that causes the build to fail:

echo "ac_cv_func_setvbuf_reversed=no" >> config.cache

When bash is cross-compiled, it cannot test for the presence of named pipes. If you used su to become an unprivileged user, this combination will cause Bash to build without process substitution, which will break one of the c++ test scripts in glibc. Prevent that by forcing the following definition:

echo "bash_cv_sys_named_pipes=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Bash for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --without-bash-malloc --cache-file=config.cache

The meaning of the configure option:

--without-bash-malloc

This option turns off the use of Bash's memory allocation (malloc) function which is known to cause segmentation faults. By turning this option off, Bash will use the malloc functions from Glibc which are more stable.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Make a link for programs that use sh for a shell:

ln -sv bash /tools/bin/sh

Details on this package are located in Section 10.26.2, “Contents of Bash.”

6.7. Bzip2-1.0.3

The Bzip2 package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. Compressing text files with bzip2 yields a much better compression percentage than with the traditional gzip.

6.7.1. Installation of Bzip2

Bzip2's default Makefile target automatically runs the testsuite as well. Disable the tests since they won't work on a multi-architecture build:

cp -v Makefile{,.orig}
sed -e 's@^\(all:.*\) test@\1@g' Makefile.orig > Makefile

The Bzip2 package does not contain a configure script. Compile it with:

make CC="${CC}" AR="${AR}" RANLIB="${RANLIB}"

Install the package:

make PREFIX=/tools install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.27.2, “Contents of Bzip2.”

6.8. Coreutils-5.96

The Coreutils package contains utilities for showing and setting the basic system characteristics.

6.8.1. Installation of Coreutils

Coreutils has some issues when cross-compiling. So we define the items cross-compiling doesn't like:

echo "ac_cv_sys_restartable_syscalls=yes" > config.cache
echo "ac_cv_func_setvbuf_reversed=yes" >> config.cache
echo "utils_cv_sys_open_max=1024" >> config.cache

Prepare Coreutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --cache-file=config.cache \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.11.2, “Contents of Coreutils.”

6.9. Diffutils-2.8.7

The Diffutils package contains programs that show the differences between files or directories.

6.9.1. Installation of Diffutils

Prepare Diffutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.28.2, “Contents of Diffutils.”

6.10. Findutils-4.2.27

The Findutils package contains programs to find files. These programs are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to create, maintain, and search a database (often faster than the recursive find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).

6.10.1. Installation of Findutils

Findutils has an issue with cross-compiling where it can't find getline. Fix it here:

echo "am_cv_func_working_getline=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Findutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --cache-file=config.cache

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.31.2, “Contents of Findutils.”

6.11. Gawk-3.1.5

The Gawk package contains programs for manipulating text files.

6.11.1. Installation of Gawk

Prepare Gawk for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.32.2, “Contents of Gawk.”

6.12. Gettext-0.14.5

The Gettext package contains utilities for internationalization and localization. These allow programs to be compiled with NLS (Native Language Support), enabling them to output messages in the user's native language.

6.12.1. Installation of Gettext

Gettext has an issue with cross-compiling where it can't find getline. Fix it here:

cd gettext-tools
echo "am_cv_func_working_getline=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Gettext for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --disable-shared --cache-file=config.cache

The meaning of the configure options:

--disable-shared

This tells Gettext not to create a shared library.

Only one program in the Gettext package needs to be built:

make -C lib
make -C src msgfmt

Install the msgfmt binary:

cp -v src/msgfmt /tools/bin

Details on this package are located in Section 10.33.2, “Contents of Gettext.”

6.13. Grep-2.5.1a

The Grep package contains programs for searching through files.

6.13.1. Installation of Grep

Prepare Grep for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --disable-perl-regexp

The meaning of the configure options:

--disable-perl-regexp

This ensures that the grep program does not get linked against a Perl Compatible Regular Expression (PCRE) library that may be present on the host but will not be available when building the final system.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.34.2, “Contents of Grep.”

6.14. Gzip-1.3.5

The Gzip package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files.

6.14.1. Installation of Gzip

Setup configure so it can use cross-compiled tools:

cp -v configure{,.orig}
sed -e "s@nm conftest@${CLFS_TARGET}-&@" configure.orig > configure

Prepare Gzip for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.36.2, “Contents of Gzip.”

6.15. Make-3.81

The Make package contains a program for compiling packages.

6.15.1. Installation of Make

Prepare Make for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.40.2, “Contents of Make.”

6.16. Patch-2.5.9

The Patch package contains a program for modifying or creating files by applying a “patch” file typically created by the diff program.

6.16.1. Installation of Patch

Prepare Patch for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.44.2, “Contents of Patch.”

6.17. Sed-4.1.5

The Sed package contains a stream editor.

6.17.1. Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.17.2, “Contents of Sed.”

6.18. Tar-1.15.1

The Tar package contains an archiving program.

6.18.1. Installation of Tar

Tar has an issue with cross-compiling where it can't find getline. Fix it here:

echo "am_cv_func_working_getline=yes" >> config.cache

Prepare Tar for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET} \
    --cache-file=config.cache

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.49.2, “Contents of Tar.”

6.19. Texinfo-4.8

The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting info pages.

6.19.1. Installation of Texinfo

Prepare Texinfo for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.50.2, “Contents of Texinfo.”

6.20. To Boot or to Chroot?

There are two different ways you can proceed from this point to build the final system. You can build a kernel, a bootloader, and a few other utilities, boot into the temporary system, and build the rest there. Alternatively, you can chroot into the temporary system.

The boot method is needed when you are building on a different architecture. For example, if you are building a PowerPC system from an x86, you can't chroot. The chroot method is for when you are building on the same architecture. If you are building on, and for, an x86 system, you can simply chroot. The rule of thumb here is if the architectures match and you are running the same series kernel you can just chroot. If you aren't running the same series kernel, or are wanting to run a different ABI, you will need to use the boot option.

If you are in any doubt about this, you can try the following commands to see if you can chroot:

/tools/lib/libc.so.6
/tools/bin/gcc -v

If either of these commands fail, you will have to follow the boot method.

To chroot, you will also need a Linux Kernel-2.6.x (having been compiled with GCC-3.0 or greater). The reason for the kernel version requirement is that, without it, thread-local storage support in Binutils will not be built and the Native POSIX Threading Library (NPTL) test suite will segfault.

To check your kernel version, run cat /proc/version - if it does not say that you are running a 2.6.2 or later Linux kernel, compiled with GCC 3.0 or later, you cannot chroot.

For the boot method, follow If You Are Going to Boot.

For the chroot method, follow If You Are Going to Chroot.

Chapter 7. If You Are Going to Boot

7.1. Introduction

This chapter shows how to complete the build of temporary tools to create a minimal system that will be used to boot the target machine and to build the final system packages.

There are a few additional packages that will need to be installed to allow you to boot the minimal system. Some of these packages will be installed onto root or in /usr on the CLFS partition (${CLFS}/bin, ${CLFS}/usr/bin, etc...), rather than /tools, using the "DESTDIR" option with make. This will require the clfs user to have write access to the rest of the CLFS partition, so you will need to temporarily change the ownership of ${CLFS} to the clfs user. Run the following command as root:

chown -v clfs ${CLFS}

7.2. Creating Directories

It is time to create some structure in the CLFS file system. Create a standard directory tree by issuing the following commands:

mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/{bin,boot,dev,{etc/,}opt,home,lib,mnt}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/{proc,media/{floppy,cdrom},sbin,srv,sys}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/var/{lock,log,mail,run,spool}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/var/{opt,cache,lib/{misc,locate},local}
install -dv -m 0750 ${CLFS}/root
install -dv -m 1777 ${CLFS}{/var,}/tmp
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/usr/{,local/}share/{doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
for dir in ${CLFS}/usr{,/local}; do
  ln -sv share/{man,doc,info} $dir
done

Directories are, by default, created with permission mode 755, but this is not desirable for all directories. In the commands above, two changes are made—one to the home directory of user root, and another to the directories for temporary files.

The first mode change ensures that not just anybody can enter the /root directory—the same as a normal user would do with his or her home directory. The second mode change makes sure that any user can write to the /tmp and /var/tmp directories, but cannot remove another user's files from them. The latter is prohibited by the so-called “sticky bit,” the highest bit (1) in the 1777 bit mask.

7.2.1. FHS Compliance Note

The directory tree is based on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) (available at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). In addition to the tree created above, this standard stipulates the existence of /usr/local/games and /usr/share/games. The FHS is not precise as to the structure of the /usr/local/share subdirectory, so we create only the directories that are needed. However, feel free to create these directories if you prefer to conform more strictly to the FHS.

7.3. Creating Essential Symlinks

Some programs use hard-wired paths to programs which do not exist yet. In order to satisfy these programs, create a number of symbolic links which will be replaced by real files throughout the course of the next chapter after the software has been installed.

ln -sv /tools/bin/{bash,cat,grep,pwd,stty} ${CLFS}/bin
ln -sv /tools/lib/libgcc_s.so{,.1} ${CLFS}/usr/lib
ln -sv /tools/lib/libstd* ${CLFS}/usr/lib
ln -sv bash ${CLFS}/bin/sh

7.4. Zlib-1.2.3

The Zlib package contains compression and decompression routines used by some programs.

7.4.1. Installation of Zlib

Prepare Zlib for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --shared

The meaning of the configure options:

--shared

Tells Zlib to build its shared library.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.23.2, “Contents of Zlib.”

7.5. E2fsprogs-1.39

The E2fsprogs package contains the utilities for handling the ext2 file system. It also supports the ext3 journaling file system.

7.5.1. Installation of E2fsprogs

The E2fsprogs documentation recommends that the package be built in a subdirectory of the source tree:

mkdir -v build
cd build

Prepare E2fsprogs for compilation:

../configure --prefix=/tools \
    --enable-elf-shlibs --disable-evms \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

The meaning of the configure options:

--enable-elf-shlibs

This creates the shared libraries which some programs in this package use.

--disable-evms

This disables the building of the Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) plugin. This plugin is not up-to-date with the latest EVMS internal interfaces and EVMS is not installed as part of a base CLFS system, so the plugin is not required. See the EVMS website at http://evms.sourceforge.net/ for more information regarding EVMS.

Compile the package:

make

Install the binaries and documentation:

make DESTDIR=${CLFS} install

The meaning of the make option:

DESTDIR=${CLFS}

The Makefile for e2fsprogs hard-codes a path to the mke2fs.conf file, attempting to install it into ${DESTDIR}/etc, causing the installation to fail as it tries to write to /etc. The DESTDIR parameter prevents this.

Install the shared libraries:

make install-libs

Create needed symlinks for a bootable system:

ln -sv /tools/sbin/{fsck.ext2,fsck.ext3,e2fsck} ${CLFS}/sbin

Details on this package are located in Section 10.29.2, “Contents of E2fsprogs.”

7.6. Sysvinit-2.86

The Sysvinit package contains programs for controlling the startup, running, and shutdown of the system.

7.6.1. Installation of Sysvinit

Make some modifications to allow you to boot into the minimal temp-system:

cp -v src/Makefile src/Makefile.orig
sed -e 's@root@0@g' \
    -e "s@/dev/initctl@${CLFS}&@g" \
    -e 's@\(mknod \)-m \([0-9]* \)\(.* \)p@\1\3p; chmod \2\3@g' \
    -e "s@/usr/lib@/tools/lib@" \
    src/Makefile.orig > src/Makefile

Compile the package:

make -C src clobber
make -C src CC="${CC}"

Install the package:

make -C src install INSTALL="install" ROOT="${CLFS}"

7.6.2. Configuring Sysvinit

Create a new file ${CLFS}/etc/inittab by running the following:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/inittab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:

si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 0
l1:S1:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 6

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now

su:S016:once:/sbin/sulogin

# Remove this section if you System only
# has a console port
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty1 9600
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty2 9600
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty3 9600
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty4 9600
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty5 9600
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty6 9600

# Uncomment this section if your system has a console
# port
#c0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 9600 ttyS0 vt100

# End /etc/inittab
EOF

Details on this package are located in Section 10.48.3, “Contents of Sysvinit.”

7.7. Module-Init-Tools-3.2.2

The Module-Init-Tools package contains programs for handling kernel modules in Linux kernels greater than or equal to version 2.5.47.

7.7.1. Installation of Module-Init-Tools

Prepare Module-Init-Tools for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/ \
    --build=${CLFS_HOST} --host=${CLFS_TARGET}

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make DESTDIR="${CLFS}" install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.43.2, “Contents of Module-Init-Tools.”

7.8. Util-linux-2.12r

The Util-linux package contains miscellaneous utility programs. Among them are utilities for handling file systems, consoles, partitions, and messages.

7.8.1. Installation of Util-linux

Util-linux fails to compile against newer versions of Linux kernel headers. The following patch properly fixes this issue:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-cramfs-1.patch

The following patch fixes build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

The following patch fixes swapon.c - it tries to find the variable R_OK, but the header that has R_OK is not included:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-missing_header-1.patch

Util-linux does not use the freshly installed headers and libraries from the /tools directory by default. This is fixed by altering the configure script:

cp -v configure{,.orig}
sed -e 's@/usr/include@/tools/include@g' configure.orig > configure

The Util-linux installation uses -o root. The following sed removes that since we don't have users setup yet:

cp -v MCONFIG{,.orig}
sed -e 's|-o root||' MCONFIG.orig > MCONFIG

Prepare Util-linux for compilation:

./configure

Compile the package:

make HAVE_KILL=yes HAVE_SLN=yes \
    HAVE_SHADOW=no CPUOPT="" ARCH="" \
    CPU=""

The meaning of the make parameters:

HAVE_KILL=yes

This prevents the kill program from being built.

HAVE_SLN=yes

This prevents the sln program (a statically linked version of ln already installed by Glibc) from being built and installed again.

HAVE_SHADOW=no

This disables linking to shadow .

CPUOPT=""

This disables any compiler optimizations by CPU type.

ARCH=""

This disables the detection of the architecture.

CPU=""

This disables the detection of the CPU.

Install the package:

make HAVE_KILL=yes HAVE_SLN=yes HAVE_SHADOW=no \
    USE_TTY_GROUP=no CPUOPT="" ARCH="" \
    CPU="" DESTDIR=${CLFS} install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.52.3, “Contents of Util-linux.”

7.9. Udev-096

The Udev package contains programs for dynamic creation of device nodes.

7.9.1. Installation of Udev

Compile the package:

make CROSS_COMPILE="${CLFS_TARGET}-" CC="${CC}" LD="${CC}"

Install the package:

make DESTDIR=${CLFS} install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.51.2, “Contents of Udev.”

7.10. Creating the passwd, group, and log Files

In order for user root to be able to login and for the name “root” to be recognized, there must be relevant entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.

Create the ${CLFS}/etc/passwd file by running the following command:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/passwd << "EOF"
root::0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
EOF

The actual password for root (the “::” used here is just a placeholder and allow you to login with no password) will be set later.

Additional users you may want to add:

bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/bin/false

Can be useful for compatibility with legacy applications.

daemon:x:2:6:daemon:/sbin:/bin/false

It is often recommended to use an unprivileged User ID/Group ID for daemons to run as, in order to limit their access to the system.

adm:x:3:16:adm:/var/adm:/bin/false

Was used for programs that performed administrative tasks.

lp:x:10:9:lp:/var/spool/lp:/bin/false

Used by programs for printing

mail:x:30:30:mail:/var/mail:/bin/false

Often used by email programs

news:x:31:31:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/false

Often used for network news servers

uucp:x:32:32:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/false

Often used for Unix-to-Unix Copy of files from one server to the next

operator:x:50:0:operator:/root:/bin/bash

Often used to allow system operators to access the system

postmaster:x:51:30:postmaster:/var/spool/mail:/bin/false

Generally used as an account that receives all the information of troubles with the mail server

nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/:/bin/false

Used by NFS

Create the ${CLFS}/etc/group file by running the following command:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tty:x:4:
tape:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
usb:x:14:
cdrom:x:15:
EOF

Additional groups you may want to add

adm:x:16:root,adm,daemon

All users in this group are allowed to do administrative tasks

console:x:17:

This group has direct access to the console

cdrw:x:18:

This group is allowed to use the CDRW drive

mail:x:30:mail

Used by MTAs (Mail Transport Agents)

news:x:31:news

Used by Network News Servers

uucp:x:32:uucp

Used by the Unix-to-Unix copy users

users:x:1000:

The default GID used by shadow for new users

nogroup:x:65533:

This is a default group used by some programs that do not require a group

nobody:x:65534:

This is used by NFS

The created groups are not part of any standard—they are groups decided on in part by the requirements of the Udev configuration in the final system, and in part by common convention employed by a number of existing Linux distributions. The Linux Standard Base (LSB, available at http://www.linuxbase.org) recommends only that, besides the group “root” with a Group ID (GID) of 0, a group “bin” with a GID of 1 be present. All other group names and GIDs can be chosen freely by the system administrator since well-written programs do not depend on GID numbers, but rather use the group's name.

The login, agetty, and init programs (and others) use a number of log files to record information such as who was logged into the system and when. However, these programs will not write to the log files if they do not already exist. Initialize the log files and give them proper permissions:

touch ${CLFS}/var/run/utmp ${CLFS}/var/log/{btmp,lastlog,wtmp}
chmod -v 664 ${CLFS}/var/run/utmp ${CLFS}/var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 600 ${CLFS}/var/log/btmp

The /var/run/utmp file records the users that are currently logged in. The /var/log/wtmp file records all logins and logouts. The /var/log/lastlog file records when each user last logged in. The /var/log/btmp file records the bad login attempts.

7.11. Linux-2.6.17.13

The Linux package contains the Linux kernel.

7.11.1. Installation of the kernel

Warning

Here a temporary cross-compiled kernel will be built. When configuring it, select the minimal amount of options required to boot the target machine and build the final system. I.e., no support for sound, printers, etc. will be needed.

Also, try to avoid the use of modules if possible, and don't use the resulting kernel image for production systems.

Building the kernel involves a few steps—configuration, compilation, and installation. Read the README file in the kernel source tree for alternative methods to the way this book configures the kernel.

The following patch fixes on intialization issue with the tulip network driver:

patch -Np1 -i ../linux-2.6.17.13-tulip-1.patch

The following patch fixes some inline assembler in the kernel:

patch -Np1 -i ../linux-2.6.17.13-alpha_io_fix-1.patch

Prepare for compilation by running the following command:

make mrproper

This ensures that the kernel tree is absolutely clean. The kernel team recommends that this command be issued prior to each kernel compilation. Do not rely on the source tree being clean after un-tarring.

If your keyboard isn't a US one and you have Kbd installed on your host system, you can build the proper keymap for your keyboard layout inside the kernel. If you wish to do this, run the following command (replace [path to keymap] with the keymap location on the host - a common location is in /usr/share/kbd):

loadkeys -m [path to  keymap] > \
    drivers/char/defkeymap.c

For example, if using a Dutch keyboard, use /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/nl.map.gz.

Configure the kernel via a menu-driven interface:

make ARCH=alpha CROSS_COMPILE=${CLFS_TARGET}- menuconfig

Compile the kernel image and modules:

make ARCH=alpha CROSS_COMPILE=${CLFS_TARGET}-

If the use of kernel modules can't be avoided, an /etc/modprobe.conf file may be needed. Information pertaining to modules and kernel configuration is located in the kernel documentation in the Documentation directory of the kernel sources tree. The modprobe.conf man page may also be of interest.

Be very careful when reading other documentation relating to kernel modules because it usually applies to 2.4.x kernels only. As far as we know, kernel configuration issues specific to Hotplug and Udev are not documented. The problem is that Udev will create a device node only if Hotplug or a user-written script inserts the corresponding module into the kernel, and not all modules are detectable by Hotplug. Note that statements like the one below in the /etc/modprobe.conf file do not work with Udev:

alias char-major-XXX some-module

Install the modules, if the kernel configuration uses them:

make ARCH=alpha CROSS_COMPILE=${CLFS_TARGET}- \
   INSTALL_MOD_PATH=${CLFS} modules_install

After kernel compilation is complete, additional steps are required to complete the installation. Some files need to be copied to the ${CLFS}/boot directory.

Issue the following command to install the kernel:

cp -v vmlinux ${CLFS}/boot/clfskernel-2.6.17.13

System.map is a symbol file for the kernel. It maps the function entry points of every function in the kernel API, as well as the addresses of the kernel data structures for the running kernel. Issue the following command to install the map file:

cp -v System.map ${CLFS}/boot/System.map-2.6.17.13

The kernel configuration file .config produced by the make menuconfig step above contains all the configuration selections for the kernel that was just compiled. It is a good idea to keep this file for future reference:

cp -v .config ${CLFS}/boot/config-2.6.17.13

Details on this package are located in Section 12.3.2, “Contents of Linux.”

7.12. Aboot-0.9b

The aboot package contains the Alpha Bootloader.

7.12.1. Installation of Aboot

The following patch addresses build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../aboot-0.9b-kernel26_gcc4_fixes-4.patch

Compile the package:

make CC="${CC}"

Install the package:

make root="${CLFS}" bindir=/cross-tools/bin install

Details on this package are located in Section 10.54.2, “Contents of aboot.”

7.13. Setting Up the Environment

The new instance of the shell that will start when the system is booted is a login shell, which will read .bash_profile file. Create the .bash_profile file now:

cat > ${CLFS}/root/.bash_profile << "EOF"
set +h
PS1='\u:\w\$ '
LC_ALL=POSIX
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/tools/bin:/tools/sbin
export LC_ALL PATH PS1
EOF

The LC_ALL variable controls the localization of certain programs, making their messages follow the conventions of a specified country. Setting LC_ALL to “POSIX” or “C” (the two are equivalent) ensures that everything will work as expected on your temporary system.

By putting /tools/bin at the end of the standard PATH, all the programs installed in Constructing a Temporary System are only picked up by the shell if they have not yet been built on the target system. This configuration forces use of the final system binaries as they are built over the temp-system, minimising the chance of final system programs being built against the temp-system.

7.14. Creating the /etc/fstab File

The /etc/fstab file is used by some programs to determine where file systems are to be mounted by default, which must be checked, and in which order. Create a new file systems table like this:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/fstab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point  type   options          dump  fsck
#                                                         order

/dev/[xxx]     /            [fff]  defaults         1     1
/dev/[yyy]     swap         swap   pri=1            0     0
proc           /proc        proc   defaults         0     0
sysfs          /sys         sysfs  defaults         0     0
devpts         /dev/pts     devpts gid=4,mode=620   0     0
shm            /dev/shm     tmpfs  defaults         0     0
# End /etc/fstab
EOF

Replace [xxx], [yyy], and [fff] with the values appropriate for the system, for example, hda2, hda5, and ext2. For details on the six fields in this file, see man 5 fstab.

The /dev/shm mount point for tmpfs is included to allow enabling POSIX-shared memory. The kernel must have the required support built into it for this to work (more about this is in the next section). Please note that very little software currently uses POSIX-shared memory. Therefore, consider the /dev/shm mount point optional. For more information, see Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt in the kernel source tree.

7.15. CLFS-Bootscripts-1.0

The CLFS-Bootscripts package contains a set of scripts to start/stop the CLFS system at bootup/shutdown.

7.15.1. Installation of CLFS-Bootscripts

Install the package:

make ETCDIR=${CLFS}/etc minimal

The setclock script reads the time from the hardware clock, also known as the BIOS or the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) clock. If the hardware clock is set to UTC, this script will convert the hardware clock's time to the local time using the /etc/localtime file (which tells the hwclock program which timezone the user is in). There is no way to detect whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC, so this needs to be configured manually.

If you do not know whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC, you can find out after you have booted the new machine by running the hwclock --localtime --show command, and if necessary editing the /etc/sysconfig/clock script. The worst that will happen if you make a wrong guess here is that the time displayed will be wrong.

Change the value of the UTC variable below to a value of 0 (zero) if the hardware clock is not set to UTC time.

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/sysconfig/clock << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/sysconfig/clock

UTC=1

# End /etc/sysconfig/clock
EOF

Details on this package are located in Section 11.2.2, “Contents of CLFS-Bootscripts.”

7.16. Udev Rules-1.0-3

The Udev Cross-LFS rules package contains the necessary rules set for a basic functional system.

7.16.1. Installation of Udev-Rules

Install the package:

make DESTDIR=${CLFS} install-minimal

Details on this package are located in Section 11.3.2, “Contents of Udev Rules.”

7.17. Populating /dev

7.17.1. Creating Initial Device Nodes

Note

The commands in the remainder of the book should be run as the root user. Also, double-check that ${CLFS} is set as root.

When the kernel boots the system, it requires the presence of a few device nodes, in particular the console and null devices. The device nodes will be created on the hard disk so that they are available before udev has been started, and additionally when Linux is started in single user mode (hence the restrictive permissions on console). Create these by running the following commands:

mknod -m 600 ${CLFS}/dev/console c 5 1
mknod -m 666 ${CLFS}/dev/null c 1 3

7.18. Changing Ownership

Currently, the ${CLFS} directory and all of its subdirectories are owned by the user clfs, a user that exists only on the host system. For security reasons, the ${CLFS} root directory and all of it subdirectories should be owned by root. Change the ownership for ${CLFS} and its subdirectories by running this command:

chown -Rv root:root ${CLFS}

7.19. Making the Temporary System Bootable

Create a aboot.conf file defining aboot's boot menu:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/aboot.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/aboot.conf
0:1/boot/clfskernel-2.6.17.13 root=/dev/sda1
# End /etc/aboot.conf
EOF

If you already have aboot installed on your target system, you do not need to reinstall it. aboot is just a chain loader and has no bearing on the system build.

After you get the build copied to when you can boot, you will need to issue the following command:

swriteboot -f3 /dev/sda /boot/bootlx
abootconf /dev/sda 1

7.20. What to do next

Now you're at the point to get your ${CLFS} directory copied over to your target machine. The easiest method would be to tar it up and copy the file.

tar -jcvf ${CLFS}.tar.bz2 ${CLFS}

Some others have came up with other ideas on how to do this. Below is a table with the method and link to where the information is stored.

Table 7.1. Boot Methods

Boot Method For Architectures Hyperlink
nfsroot MIPS, PPC, Sparc, x86, and x86_64 http://documents.jg555.com/netboot

Chapter 8. If You Are Going to Chroot

8.1. Introduction

This chapter shows how to prepare a chroot jail to build the final system packages into.

8.2. Util-linux-2.12r

The Util-linux package contains miscellaneous utility programs. Among them are utilities for handling file systems, consoles, partitions, and messages.

8.2.1. Installation of Util-linux

The following patch fixes build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

Util-linux does not use the freshly installed headers and libraries from the /tools directory by default. This is fixed by altering the configure script:

cp -v configure{,.orig}
sed -e 's@/usr/include@/tools/include@g' configure.orig > configure

Prepare Util-linux for compilation:

./configure

Compile some support routines:

make ARCH="" CPU="" -C lib

The meaning of the make parameters:

ARCH=""

This disables the detection of the architecture.

CPU=""

This disables the detection of the CPU.

Only a few of the utilities contained in this package need to be built:

make ARCH="" CPU="" -C mount mount umount
make ARCH="" CPU="" -C text-utils more

Copy these programs to the temporary tools directory:

cp -v mount/{,u}mount text-utils/more /tools/bin

Details on this package are located in Section 10.52.3, “Contents of Util-linux.”

8.3. Mounting Virtual Kernel File Systems

Note

The commands in the remainder of the book should be run as the root user. Also, double-check that ${CLFS} is set as root.

Various file systems exported by the kernel are used to communicate to and from the kernel itself. These file systems are virtual in that no disk space is used for them. The content of the file systems resides in memory.

Begin by creating directories onto which the file systems will be mounted:

mkdir -pv ${CLFS}/{dev,proc,sys}

Now mount the file systems:

mount -vt proc proc ${CLFS}/proc
mount -vt sysfs sysfs ${CLFS}/sys

Remember that if for any reason you stop working on the CLFS system and start again later, it is important to check that these file systems are mounted again before entering the chroot environment.

Two device nodes, /dev/console and /dev/null, are required to be present on the filesystem. These are needed by the kernel even before starting Udev early in the boot process, so we create them here:

mknod -m 600 ${CLFS}/dev/console c 5 1
mknod -m 666 ${CLFS}/dev/null c 1 3

Once the system is complete and booting, the rest of our device nodes are created by the Udev package. Since this package is not available to us right now, we must take other steps to provide device nodes under on the CLFS filesystem. We will use the “bind” option in the mount command to make our host system's /dev structure appear in the new CLFS filesystem:

mount -v -o bind /dev ${CLFS}/dev

Additional file systems will soon be mounted from within the chroot environment. To keep the host up to date, perform a “fake mount” for each of these now:

mount -f -vt tmpfs tmpfs ${CLFS}/dev/shm
mount -f -vt devpts -o gid=4,mode=620 devpts ${CLFS}/dev/pts

8.4. Entering the Chroot Environment

It is time to enter the chroot environment to begin building and installing the final CLFS system. As user root, run the following command to enter the realm that is, at the moment, populated with only the temporary tools:

chroot "${CLFS}" /tools/bin/env -i \
    HOME=/root TERM="${TERM}" PS1='\u:\w\$ ' \
    PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/tools/bin \
    /tools/bin/bash --login +h

The -i option given to the env command will clear all variables of the chroot environment. After that, only the HOME, TERM, PS1, and PATH variables are set again. The TERM=${TERM} construct will set the TERM variable inside chroot to the same value as outside chroot. This variable is needed for programs like vim and less to operate properly. If other variables are needed, such as CFLAGS or CXXFLAGS, this is a good place to set them again.

From this point on, there is no need to use the CLFS variable anymore, because all work will be restricted to the CLFS file system. This is because the Bash shell is told that ${CLFS} is now the root (/) directory.

Notice that /tools/bin comes last in the PATH. This means that a temporary tool will no longer be used once its final version is installed. This occurs when the shell does not “remember” the locations of executed binaries—for this reason, hashing is switched off by passing the +h option to bash.

It is important that all the commands throughout the remainder of this chapter and the following chapters are run from within the chroot environment. If you leave this environment for any reason (rebooting for example), remember to first mount the proc and devpts file systems (discussed in the previous section) and enter chroot again before continuing with the installations.

Note that the bash prompt will say I have no name! This is normal because the /etc/passwd file has not been created yet.

8.5. Changing Ownership

Currently, the /tools and /cross-tools directories are owned by the user clfs, a user that exists only on the host system. Although the /tools and /cross-tools directories can be deleted once the CLFS system has been finished, they can be retained to build additional CLFS systems. If the /tools and /cross-tools directories are kept as is, the files are owned by a user ID without a corresponding account. This is dangerous because a user account created later could get this same user ID and would own the /tools directory and all the files therein, thus exposing these files to possible malicious manipulation.

To avoid this issue, add the clfs user to the new CLFS system later when creating the /etc/passwd file, taking care to assign it the same user and group IDs as on the host system. Alternatively, assign the contents of the /tools and /cross-tools directories to user root by running the following commands:

chown -Rv 0:0 /tools
chown -Rv 0:0 /cross-tools

The commands use 0:0 instead of root:root, because chown is unable to resolve the name “root” until the passwd file has been created.

8.6. Creating Directories

It is time to create some structure in the CLFS file system. Create a standard directory tree by issuing the following commands:

mkdir -pv /{bin,boot,dev,{etc/,}opt,home,lib,mnt}
mkdir -pv /{proc,media/{floppy,cdrom},sbin,srv,sys}
mkdir -pv /var/{lock,log,mail,run,spool}
mkdir -pv /var/{opt,cache,lib/{misc,locate},local}
install -dv -m 0750 /root
install -dv -m 1777 {/var,}/tmp
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}
for dir in /usr{,/local}; do
  ln -sv share/{man,doc,info} $dir
done

Directories are, by default, created with permission mode 755, but this is not desirable for all directories. In the commands above, two changes are made—one to the home directory of user root, and another to the directories for temporary files.

The first mode change ensures that not just anybody can enter the /root directory—the same as a normal user would do with his or her home directory. The second mode change makes sure that any user can write to the /tmp and /var/tmp directories, but cannot remove another user's files from them. The latter is prohibited by the so-called “sticky bit,” the highest bit (1) in the 1777 bit mask.

8.6.1. FHS Compliance Note

The directory tree is based on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) (available at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). In addition to the tree created above, this standard stipulates the existence of /usr/local/games and /usr/share/games. The FHS is not precise as to the structure of the /usr/local/share subdirectory, so we create only the directories that are needed. However, feel free to create these directories if you prefer to conform more strictly to the FHS.

8.7. Creating Essential Symlinks

Some programs use hard-wired paths to programs which do not exist yet. In order to satisfy these programs, create a number of symbolic links which will be replaced by real files throughout the course of the next chapter after the software has been installed.

ln -sv /tools/bin/{bash,cat,grep,pwd,stty} /bin
ln -sv /tools/lib/libgcc_s.so{,.1} /usr/lib
ln -sv /tools/lib/libstd* /usr/lib
ln -sv bash /bin/sh

8.8. Creating the passwd, group, and log Files

In order for user root to be able to login and for the name “root” to be recognized, there must be relevant entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.

Create the /etc/passwd file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/passwd << "EOF"
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
EOF

The actual password for root (the “x” used here is just a placeholder) will be set later.

Additional users you may want to add:

bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/bin/false

Can be useful for compatibility with legacy applications.

daemon:x:2:6:daemon:/sbin:/bin/false

It is often recommended to use an unprivileged User ID/Group ID for daemons to run as, in order to limit their access to the system.

adm:x:3:16:adm:/var/adm:/bin/false

Was used for programs that performed administrative tasks.

lp:x:10:9:lp:/var/spool/lp:/bin/false

Used by programs for printing

mail:x:30:30:mail:/var/mail:/bin/false

Often used by email programs

news:x:31:31:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/false

Often used for network news servers

uucp:x:32:32:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/false

Often used for Unix-to-Unix Copy of files from one server to the next

operator:x:50:0:operator:/root:/bin/bash

Often used to allow system operators to access the system

postmaster:x:51:30:postmaster:/var/spool/mail:/bin/false

Generally used as an account that receives all the information of troubles with the mail server

nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/:/bin/false

Used by NFS

Create the /etc/group file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tty:x:4:
tape:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
usb:x:14:
cdrom:x:15:
EOF

Additional groups you may want to add

adm:x:16:root,adm,daemon

All users in this group are allowed to do administrative tasks

console:x:17:

This group has direct access to the console

cdrw:x:18:

This group is allowed to use the CDRW drive

mail:x:30:mail

Used by MTAs (Mail Transport Agents)

news:x:31:news

Used by Network News Servers

uucp:x:32:uucp

Used by the Unix-to-Unix copy users

users:x:1000:

The default GID used by shadow for new users

nogroup:x:65533:

This is a default group used by some programs that do not require a group

nobody:x:65534:

This is used by NFS

The created groups are not part of any standard—they are groups decided on in part by the requirements of the Udev configuration in the final system, and in part by common convention employed by a number of existing Linux distributions. The Linux Standard Base (LSB, available at http://www.linuxbase.org) recommends only that, besides the group “root” with a Group ID (GID) of 0, a group “bin” with a GID of 1 be present. All other group names and GIDs can be chosen freely by the system administrator since well-written programs do not depend on GID numbers, but rather use the group's name.

The login, agetty, and init programs (and others) use a number of log files to record information such as who was logged into the system and when. However, these programs will not write to the log files if they do not already exist. Initialize the log files and give them proper permissions:

To remove the “I have no name!” prompt, start a new shell. Since a full Glibc was installed in Constructing Cross-Compile Tools and the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files have been created, user name and group name resolution will now work.

exec /tools/bin/bash --login +h

Note the use of the +h directive. This tells bash not to use its internal path hashing. Without this directive, bash would remember the paths to binaries it has executed. To ensure the use of the newly compiled binaries as soon as they are installed, the +h directive will be used for the duration of the nexts chapters.

The created groups are not part of any standard—they are groups decided on in part by the requirements of the Udev configuration in the final system, and in part by common convention employed by a number of existing Linux distributions. The Linux Standard Base (LSB, available at http://www.linuxbase.org) recommends only that, besides the group “root” with a Group ID (GID) of 0, a group “bin” with a GID of 1 be present. All other group names and GIDs can be chosen freely by the system administrator since well-written programs do not depend on GID numbers, but rather use the group's name.

touch /var/run/utmp /var/log/{btmp,lastlog,wtmp}
chgrp -v utmp /var/run/utmp /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 664 /var/run/utmp /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 600 /var/log/btmp

The /var/run/utmp file records the users that are currently logged in. The /var/log/wtmp file records all logins and logouts. The /var/log/lastlog file records when each user last logged in. The /var/log/btmp file records the bad login attempts.

8.9. Mounting Kernel Filesystems

8.9.1. Mounting Additional Kernel Filesystems

Mount the proper virtual (kernel) file systems on the newly-created directories:

mount -vt devpts -o gid=4,mode=620 none /dev/pts
mount -vt tmpfs none /dev/shm

The mount commands executed above may result in the following warning message:

can't open /etc/fstab: No such file or directory.

This file—/etc/fstab—has not been created yet but is also not required for the file systems to be properly mounted. As such, the warning can be safely ignored.

Part V. Building the CLFS System

Table of Contents

Chapter 9. Constructing Testsuite Tools

9.1. Introduction

This chapter builds the tools needed to run the tests that the packages have. I.e., make check

9.2. Tcl-8.4.12

The Tcl package contains the Tool Command Language.

9.2.1. Installation of Tcl

This package and the next two (Expect and DejaGNU) are installed to support running the test suites for GCC and Binutils. Installing three packages for testing purposes may seem excessive, but it is very reassuring, if not essential, to know that the most important tools are working properly.

First, fix a syntax error in the configure script:

cd unix
sed -i "s/relid'/relid/" configure

Prepare Tcl for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Build the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Tcl's private header files are needed for the next package, Expect. Install them into /tools:

make install-private-headers

Now make a necessary symbolic link:

ln -sv tclsh8.4 /tools/bin/tclsh

9.2.2. Contents of Tcl

Installed programs: tclsh (link to tclsh8.4) and tclsh8.4
Installed library: libtcl8.4.so

Short Descriptions

tclsh8.4

The Tcl command shell

tclsh

A link to tclsh8.4

libtcl8.4.so

The Tcl library

9.3. Expect-5.43.0

The Expect package contains a program for carrying out scripted dialogues with other interactive programs.

9.3.1. Installation of Expect

The following sed tells configure to look for libraries in ${libdir}, not just in /tools/lib:

sed -i '/EXP_LIB_SPEC=/s@${exec_prefix}/lib@${libdir}@' configure

Fix a bug that can result in false failures during the GCC test suite run:

patch -Np1 -i ../expect-5.43.0-spawn-2.patch

Now prepare Expect for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --with-tcl=/tools/lib \
    --with-tclinclude=/tools/include

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-tcl=/tools/lib

This ensures that the configure script finds the Tcl installation in the temporary testsuite-tools location.

--with-tclinclude=/tools/include

This explicitly tells Expect where to find Tcl's internal headers. Using this option avoids conditions where configure fails because it cannot automatically discover the location of the Tcl source directory.

Build the package:

make

Install the package:

make SCRIPTS="" install

The meaning of the make parameter:

SCRIPTS=""

This prevents installation of the supplementary expect scripts, which are not needed.

9.3.2. Contents of Expect

Installed program: expect
Installed library: libexpect-5.43.a

Short Descriptions

expect

Communicates with other interactive programs according to a script

libexpect-5.43.a

Contains functions that allow Expect to be used as a Tcl extension or to be used directly from C or C++ (without Tcl)

9.4. File-4.17

The File package contains a utility for determining the type of a given file or files.

9.4.1. Installation of File

Prepare File for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Now we create a symlink so that the GCC testsuite can use file:

ln -sv /tools/bin/file /usr/bin

Details on this package are located in Section 10.30.2, “Contents of File.”

9.5. DejaGNU-1.4.4

The DejaGNU package contains a framework for testing other programs.

9.5.1. Installation of DejaGNU

Prepare DejaGNU for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Build and install the package:

make install

9.5.2. Contents of DejaGNU

Installed program: runtest

Short Descriptions

runtest

A wrapper script that locates the proper expect shell and then runs DejaGNU

9.6. Tree-1.5.0

The Tree package contains a program that lists the directory structure in a graphical "tree" format. It is used by Udev for failures in its testsuite.

9.6.1. Installation of Tree

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make prefix=/tools install

The meaning of the make parameters:

prefix=/tools

This overrides the default prefix of /usr/local in the Makefile.

9.6.2. Contents of Tree

Installed program: tree

Short Descriptions

tree

Tree will list contents of directories in a tree-like format.

Chapter 10. Installing Basic System Software

10.1. Introduction

In this chapter, we enter the building site and start constructing the CLFS system in earnest. The installation of this software is straightforward. Although in many cases the installation instructions could be made shorter and more generic, we have opted to provide the full instructions for every package to minimize the possibilities for mistakes. The key to learning what makes a Linux system work is to know what each package is used for and why the user (or the system) needs it. For every installed package, a summary of its contents is given, followed by concise descriptions of each program and library the package installed.

If using compiler optimizations, please review the optimization hint at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/optimization.txt. Compiler optimizations can make a program run slightly faster, but they may also cause compilation difficulties and problems when running the program. If a package refuses to compile when using optimization, try to compile it without optimization and see if that fixes the problem. Even if the package does compile when using optimization, there is the risk it may have been compiled incorrectly because of the complex interactions between the code and build tools. Also note that the -march and -mtune options may cause problems with the toolchain packages (Binutils, GCC and Glibc). The small potential gains achieved in using compiler optimizations are often outweighed by the risks. First-time builders of CLFS are encouraged to build without custom optimizations. The subsequent system will still run very fast and be stable at the same time.

The order that packages are installed in this chapter needs to be strictly followed to ensure that no program accidentally acquires a path referring to /tools hard-wired into it. For the same reason, do not compile packages in parallel. Compiling in parallel may save time (especially on dual-CPU machines), but it could result in a program containing a hard-wired path to /tools, which will cause the program to stop working when that directory is removed.

To keep track of which package installs particular files, a package manager can be used. For a general overview of different styles of package managers, please take a look at the next page.

10.2. Package Management

Package Management is an often-requested addition to the CLFS Book. A Package Manager allows tracking the installation of files making it easy to remove and upgrade packages. Before you begin to wonder, NO—this section will not talk about nor recommend any particular package manager. What it provides is a roundup of the more popular techniques and how they work. The perfect package manager for you may be among these techniques or may be a combination of two or more of these techniques. This section briefly mentions issues that may arise when upgrading packages.

Some reasons why no specific package manager is recommended in CLFS or BLFS include:

  • Dealing with package management takes the focus away from the goals of these books—teaching how a Linux system is built.

  • There are multiple solutions for package management, each having its strengths and drawbacks. Including one that satisfies all audiences is difficult.

There are some hints written on the topic of package management. Visit the Hints subproject and see if one of them fits your need.

10.2.1. Upgrade Issues

A Package Manager makes it easy to upgrade to newer versions when they are released. Generally the instructions in the CLFS and BLFS Book can be used to upgrade to the newer versions. Here are some points that you should be aware of when upgrading packages, especially on a running system.

  • If one of the toolchain packages (Glibc, GCC or Binutils) needs to be upgraded to a newer minor version, it is safer to rebuild CLFS. Though you may be able to get by rebuilding all the packages in their dependency order, we do not recommend it. For example, if glibc-2.2.x needs to be updated to glibc-2.3.x, it is safer to rebuild. For micro version updates, a simple reinstallation usually works, but is not guaranteed. For example, upgrading from glibc-2.3.4 to glibc-2.3.5 will not usually cause any problems.

  • If a package containing a shared library is updated, and if the name of the library changes, then all the packages dynamically linked to the library need to be recompiled to link against the newer library. (Note that there is no correlation between the package version and the name of the library.) For example, consider a package foo-1.2.3 that installs a shared library with name libfoo.so.1. Say you upgrade the package to a newer version foo-1.2.4 that installs a shared library with name libfoo.so.2. In this case, all packages that are dynamically linked to libfoo.so.1 need to be recompiled to link against libfoo.so.2. Note that you should not remove the previous libraries until the dependent packages are recompiled.

  • If you are upgrading a running system, be on the lookout for packages that use cp instead of install to install files. The latter command is usually safer if the executable or library is already loaded in memory.

10.2.2. Package Management Techniques

The following are some common package management techniques. Before making a decision on a package manager, do some research on the various techniques, particularly the drawbacks of the particular scheme.

10.2.2.1. It is All in My Head!

Yes, this is a package management technique. Some folks do not find the need for a package manager because they know the packages intimately and know what files are installed by each package. Some users also do not need any package management because they plan on rebuilding the entire system when a package is changed.

10.2.2.2. Install in Separate Directories

This is a simplistic package management that does not need any extra package to manage the installations. Each package is installed in a separate directory. For example, package foo-1.1 is installed in /usr/pkg/foo-1.1 and a symlink is made from /usr/pkg/foo to /usr/pkg/foo-1.1. When installing a new version foo-1.2, it is installed in /usr/pkg/foo-1.2 and the previous symlink is replaced by a symlink to the new version.

Environment variables such as PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, MANPATH, INFOPATH and CPPFLAGS need to be expanded to include /usr/pkg/foo. For more than a few packages, this scheme becomes unmanageable.

10.2.2.3. Symlink Style Package Management

This is a variation of the previous package management technique. Each package is installed similar to the previous scheme. But instead of making the symlink, each file is symlinked into the /usr hierarchy. This removes the need to expand the environment variables. Though the symlinks can be created by the user to automate the creation, many package managers have been written using this approach. A few of the popular ones include Stow, Epkg, Graft, and Depot.

The installation needs to be faked, so that the package thinks that it is installed in /usr though in reality it is installed in the /usr/pkg hierarchy. Installing in this manner is not usually a trivial task. For example, consider that you are installing a package libfoo-1.1. The following instructions may not install the package properly:

./configure --prefix=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1
make
make install

The installation will work, but the dependent packages may not link to libfoo as you would expect. If you compile a package that links against libfoo, you may notice that it is linked to /usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1/lib/libfoo.so.1 instead of /usr/lib/libfoo.so.1 as you would expect. The correct approach is to use the DESTDIR strategy to fake installation of the package. This approach works as follows:

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 install

Most packages support this approach, but there are some which do not. For the non-compliant packages, you may either need to manually install the package, or you may find that it is easier to install some problematic packages into /opt.

10.2.2.4. Timestamp Based

In this technique, a file is timestamped before the installation of the package. After the installation, a simple use of the find command with the appropriate options can generate a log of all the files installed after the timestamp file was created. A package manager written with this approach is install-log.

Though this scheme has the advantage of being simple, it has two drawbacks. If, during installation, the files are installed with any timestamp other than the current time, those files will not be tracked by the package manager. Also, this scheme can only be used when one package is installed at a time. The logs are not reliable if two packages are being installed on two different consoles.

10.2.2.5. LD_PRELOAD Based

In this approach, a library is preloaded before installation. During installation, this library tracks the packages that are being installed by attaching itself to various executables such as cp, install, mv and tracking the system calls that modify the filesystem. For this approach to work, all the executables need to be dynamically linked without the suid or sgid bit. Preloading the library may cause some unwanted side-effects during installation. Therefore, it is advised that one performs some tests to ensure that the package manager does not break anything and logs all the appropriate files.

10.2.2.6. Creating Package Archives

In this scheme, the package installation is faked into a separate tree as described in the Symlink style package management. After the installation, a package archive is created using the installed files. This archive is then used to install the package either on the local machine or can even be used to install the package on other machines.

This approach is used by most of the package managers found in the commercial distributions. Examples of package managers that follow this approach are RPM (which, incidentally, is required by the Linux Standard Base Specification), pkg-utils, Debian's apt, and Gentoo's Portage system. A hint describing how to adopt this style of package management for CLFS systems is located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files//fakeroot.txt.

10.3. About Test Suites, Again

In the final-system build, you are no longer cross-compiling so it is possible to run package testsuites. Some test suites are more important than others. For example, the test suites for the core toolchain packages—GCC, Binutils, and Glibc—are of the utmost importance due to their central role in a properly functioning system. The test suites for GCC and Glibc can take a very long time to complete, especially on slower hardware, but are strongly recommended.

A common issue with running the test suites for Binutils and GCC is running out of pseudo terminals (PTYs). This can result in a high number of failing tests. This may happen for several reasons, but the most likely cause (if you chrooted) is that the host system does not have the devpts file system set up correctly. This issue is discussed in greater detail at http://trac.cross-lfs.org/wiki/faq#no-ptys.

Sometimes package test suites will fail, but for reasons which the developers are aware of and have deemed non-critical. Consult the logs located at http://trac.cross-lfs.org/clfs/build-logs/1.0.0/ to verify whether or not these failures are expected. This site is valid for all tests throughout this book.

10.4. Temporary Perl-5.8.8

The Perl package contains the Practical Extraction and Report Language.

10.4.1. Installation of Perl

First adapt some hard-wired paths to the C library by applying the following patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../perl-5.8.8-libc-2.patch

Prepare Perl for compilation (make sure to get the 'Data/Dumper Fcntl IO POSIX' part of the command correct—they are all letters):

./configure.gnu --prefix=/tools \
   -Dstatic_ext='Data/Dumper IO Fcntl POSIX' -Dcc="gcc"

The meaning of the configure option:

-Dstatic_ext='Data/Dumper IO Fcntl POSIX'

This tells Perl to build the minimum set of static extensions needed for installing and testing the Glibc and Coreutils packages later in this chapter.

Now we are ready to make our perl utilities:

make perl utilities

Although Perl comes with a test suite, it is not recommended to run it at this point. Only part of Perl was built and running make test now will cause the rest of Perl to be built as well, which is unnecessary at this point. The test suite can be run later in this chapter if desired.

Install these tools and their libraries:

cp -v perl pod/pod2man /tools/bin
install -dv /tools/lib/perl5/5.8.8
cp -Rv lib/* /tools/lib/perl5/5.8.8

Finally, create a necessary symlink:

ln -sv /tools/bin/perl /usr/bin

Details on this package are located in Section 10.21.2, “Contents of Perl.”

10.5. Man-pages-2.33

The Man-pages package contains over 1,200 man pages.

10.5.1. Installation of Man-pages

Install Man-pages by running:

make install

10.5.2. Contents of Man-pages

Installed files: various man pages

Short Descriptions

man pages

This package contains man pages that describe the following: POSIX headers (section 0p), POSIX utilities (section 1p), POSIX functions (section 3p), user commands (section 1), system calls (section 2), libc calls (section 3), device information (section 4), file formats (section 5), games (section 6), conventions and macro packages (section 7), system administration (section 8), and kernel (section 9).

10.6. Linux-Headers-2.6.17.13-09092006

The Linux Headers package contains the “sanitized” kernel headers.

10.6.1. Installation of Linux Headers

For years it has been common practice to use “raw” kernel headers (straight from a kernel tarball) in /usr/include, but over the last few years, the kernel developers have taken a strong stance that this should not be done. This gave birth to the Linux-Libc-Headers Project, which was designed to maintain an API stable version of the Linux headers. Recently this project stopped producing updates, so the Cross-LFS team started development on our own project to sanitize the headers.

Install the header files that are common to all architectures:

install -dv /usr/include
cp -av include/{asm-generic,linux,mtd,scsi,sound} /usr/include/

Install the header files that are specific to this architecture:

cp -av include/asm-alpha /usr/include/asm

10.6.2. Contents of Linux-Headers

Installed headers: /usr/include/{asm,asm-generic,linux,mtd,scsi,sound}/*.h

Short Descriptions

/usr/include/{asm,asm-generic,linux,mtd,scsi,sound}/*.h

The Linux API headers

10.7. Glibc-2.4

The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and closing files, reading and writing files, string handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and so on.

10.7.1. Installation of Glibc

Note

Some packages outside of CLFS suggest installing GNU libiconv in order to translate data from one encoding to another. The project's home page (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/) says “This library provides an iconv() implementation, for use on systems which don't have one, or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode.” Glibc provides an iconv() implementation and can convert from/to Unicode, therefore libiconv is not required on a CLFS system.

The Glibc build system is self-contained and will install perfectly, even though the compiler specs file and linker are still pointing at /tools. The specs and linker cannot be adjusted before the Glibc install because the Glibc Autoconf tests would give false results and defeat the goal of achieving a clean build.

The following patch fixes some inline assembler in glibc:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-alpha_ioperm_fix-1.patch

The following patch fixes an issue that can cause localdef to segfault:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-localedef_segfault-1.patch

The following patch fixes an issue with iconv:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.4-iconv_fix-1.patch

The following sed fixes a build issue with Glibc. This will prevent nscd from trying to link to libraries that don't exist:

cp -v nscd/Makefile{,.orig}
sed -e "/nscd_stat.o: sysincludes = # nothing/d" nscd/Makefile.orig > \
    nscd/Makefile

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

Prepare Glibc for compilation:

../glibc-2.4/configure --prefix=/usr \
    --disable-profile --enable-add-ons --enable-kernel=2.6.0 \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib/glibc

The meaning of the new configure option:

--libexecdir=/usr/lib/glibc

This changes the location of the pt_chown program from its default of /usr/libexec to /usr/lib/glibc.

Compile the package:

make

Important

The test suite for Glibc is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance.

Test the results:

make -k check >glibc-check-log 2>&1 ; grep Error glibc-check-log

The Glibc test suite is highly dependent on certain functions of the host system, in particular the kernel. The posix/annexc test normally fails and you should see Error 1 (ignored) in the output. Apart from this, the Glibc test suite is always expected to pass. However, in certain circumstances, some failures are unavoidable. If a test fails because of a missing program (or missing symbolic link), or a segfault, you will see an error code greater than 127 and the details will be in the log. More commonly, tests will fail with Error 2 - for these, the contents of the corresponding .out file, e.g. posix/annexc.out may be informative. Here is a list of the most common issues:

  • The math tests sometimes fail. Certain optimization settings are known to be a factor here.

  • If you have mounted the CLFS partition with the noatime option, the atime test will fail. As mentioned in Section 2.4, “Mounting the New Partition”, do not use the noatime option while building CLFS.

  • When running on older and slower hardware, some tests can fail because of test timeouts being exceeded.

Though it is a harmless message, the install stage of Glibc will complain about the absence of /etc/ld.so.conf. Prevent this warning with:

touch /etc/ld.so.conf

Install the package:

make install

10.7.2. Internationalization

The locales that can make the system respond in a different language were not installed by the above command. Install them with:

make localedata/install-locales

To save time, an alternative to running the previous command (which generates and installs every locale listed in the glibc-2.4/localedata/SUPPORTED file) is to install only those locales that are wanted and needed. This can be achieved by using the localedef command. Information on this command is located in the INSTALL file in the Glibc source. However, there are a number of locales that are essential in order for the tests of future packages to pass, in particular, the libstdc++ tests from GCC. The following instructions, instead of the install-locales target used above, will install the minimum set of locales necessary for the tests to run successfully:

mkdir -pv /usr/lib/locale
localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE
localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro
localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK
localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH
localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US
localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX
localedef -i fa_IR -f UTF-8 fa_IR
localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR
localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro
localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT
localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP

Some locales installed by the make localedata/install-locales command above are not properly supported by some applications that are in the CLFS and BLFS books. Because of the various problems that arise due to application programmers making assumptions that break in such locales, CLFS should not be used in locales that utilize multibyte character sets (including UTF-8) or right-to-left writing order. Numerous unofficial and unstable patches are required to fix these problems, and it has been decided by the CLFS developers not to support such complex locales at this time. This applies to the ja_JP and fa_IR locales as well—they have been installed only for GCC and Gettext tests to pass, and the watch program (part of the Procps package) does not work properly in them. Various attempts to circumvent these restrictions are documented in internationalization-related hints.

10.7.3. Configuring Glibc

The /etc/nsswitch.conf file needs to be created because, although Glibc provides defaults when this file is missing or corrupt, the Glibc defaults do not work well in a networked environment. The time zone also needs to be configured.

Create a new file /etc/nsswitch.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files
group: files
shadow: files

hosts: files dns
networks: files

protocols: files
services: files
ethers: files
rpc: files

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf
EOF

To determine the local time zone, run the following script:

tzselect

After answering a few questions about the location, the script will output the name of the time zone (e.g., EST5EDT or Canada/Eastern). Then create the /etc/localtime file by running:

cp -v --remove-destination /usr/share/zoneinfo/[xxx] \
    /etc/localtime

Replace [xxx] with the name of the time zone that tzselect provided (e.g., Canada/Eastern).

The meaning of the cp option:

--remove-destination

This is needed to force removal of the already existing symbolic link. The reason for copying the file instead of using a symlink is to cover the situation where /usr is on a separate partition. This could be important when booted into single user mode.

10.7.4. Configuring The Dynamic Loader

By default, the dynamic loader (/lib/ld-linux.so.2) searches through /lib and /usr/lib for dynamic libraries that are needed by programs as they are run. However, if there are libraries in directories other than /lib and /usr/lib, these need to be added to the /etc/ld.so.conf file in order for the dynamic loader to find them. Two directories that are commonly known to contain additional libraries are /usr/local/lib and /opt/lib, so add those directories to the dynamic loader's search path.

Create a new file /etc/ld.so.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/ld.so.conf

/usr/local/lib
/opt/lib

# End /etc/ld.so.conf
EOF

10.7.5. Contents of Glibc

Installed programs: catchsegv, gencat, getconf, getent, iconv, iconvconfig, ldconfig, ldd, lddlibc4, locale, localedef, mtrace, nscd, pcprofiledump, pt_chown, rpcgen, rpcinfo, sln, sprof, tzselect, xtrace, zdump, and zic
Installed libraries: ld.so, libBrokenLocale.[a,so], libSegFault.so, libanl.[a,so], libbsd-compat.a, libc.[a,so], libcrypt.[a,so], libdl.[a,so], libg.a, libieee.a, libm.[a,so], libmcheck.a, libmemusage.so, libnsl.a, libnss_compat.so, libnss_dns.so, libnss_files.so, libnss_hesiod.so, libnss_nis.so, libnss_nisplus.so, libpcprofile.so, libpthread.[a,so], libresolv.[a,so], librpcsvc.a, librt.[a,so], libthread_db.so, and libutil.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

catchsegv

Can be used to create a stack trace when a program terminates with a segmentation fault

gencat

Generates message catalogues

getconf

Displays the system configuration values for file system specific variables

getent

Gets entries from an administrative database

iconv

Performs character set conversion

iconvconfig

Creates fastloading iconv module configuration files

ldconfig

Configures the dynamic linker runtime bindings

ldd

Reports which shared libraries are required by each given program or shared library

lddlibc4

Assists ldd with object files

locale

Tells the compiler to enable or disable the use of POSIX locales for built-in operations

localedef

Compiles locale specifications

mtrace

Reads and interprets a memory trace file and displays a summary in human-readable format

nscd

A daemon that provides a cache for the most common name service requests

pcprofiledump

Dumps information generated by PC profiling

pt_chown

A helper program for grantpt to set the owner, group and access permissions of a slave pseudo terminal

rpcgen

Generates C code to implement the Remote Procecure Call (RPC) protocol

rpcinfo

Makes an RPC call to an RPC server

sln

A statically linked program that creates symbolic links

sprof

Reads and displays shared object profiling data

tzselect

Asks the user about the location of the system and reports the corresponding time zone description

xtrace

Traces the execution of a program by printing the currently executed function

zdump

The time zone dumper

zic

The time zone compiler

ld.so

The helper program for shared library executables

libBrokenLocale

Used by programs, such as Mozilla, to solve broken locales

libSegFault

The segmentation fault signal handler

libanl

An asynchronous name lookup library

libbsd-compat

Provides the portability needed in order to run certain Berkey Software Distribution (BSD) programs under Linux

libc

The main C library

libcrypt

The cryptography library

libdl

The dynamic linking interface library

libg

A runtime library for g++

libieee

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) floating point library

libm

The mathematical library

libmcheck

Contains code run at boot

libmemusage

Used by memusage (included in Glibc, but not built in a base CLFS system as it has additional dependencies) to help collect information about the memory usage of a program

libnsl

The network services library

libnss

The Name Service Switch libraries, containing functions for resolving host names, user names, group names, aliases, services, protocols, etc.

libpcprofile

Contains profiling functions used to track the amount of CPU time spent in specific source code lines

libpthread

The POSIX threads library

libresolv

Contains functions for creating, sending, and interpreting packets to the Internet domain name servers

librpcsvc

Contains functions providing miscellaneous RPC services

librt

Contains functions providing most of the interfaces specified by the POSIX.1b Realtime Extension

libthread_db

Contains functions useful for building debuggers for multi-threaded programs

libutil

Contains code for “standard” functions used in many different Unix utilities

10.8. Adjusting the Toolchain

Now we amend the GCC specs file so that it points to the new dynamic linker. A perl command accomplishes this:

gcc -dumpspecs | \
perl -p -e 's@/tools/lib/ld@/lib/ld@g;' \
     -e 's@\*startfile_prefix_spec:\n@$_/usr/lib/ @g;' > \
     $(dirname $(gcc --print-libgcc-file-name))/specs

It is a good idea to visually inspect the specs file to verify the intended change was actually made.

Note that /lib is now the prefix of our dynamic linker.

Caution

It is imperative at this point to stop and ensure that the basic functions (compiling and linking) of the adjusted toolchain are working as expected. To do this, perform a sanity check:

echo 'main(){}' > dummy.c
cc dummy.c
readelf -l a.out | grep ': /lib'

If everything is working correctly, there should be no errors, and the output of the last command will be:

[Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Note that /lib is now the prefix of our dynamic linker.

If the output does not appear as shown above or is not received at all, then something is seriously wrong. Investigate and retrace the steps to find out where the problem is and correct it. The most likely reason is that something went wrong with the specs file amendment above. Any issues will need to be resolved before continuing on with the process.

Once everything is working correctly, clean up the test files:

rm -v dummy.c a.out

10.9. Binutils-2.17

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

10.9.1. Installation of Binutils

Verify that the PTYs are working properly inside the build environment. Check that everything is set up correctly by performing a simple test:

expect -c "spawn ls"

If the following message shows up, the environment is not set up for proper PTY operation:

The system has no more ptys.
Ask your system administrator to create more.

This issue needs to be resolved before running the test suites for Binutils and GCC.

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Prepare Binutils for compilation:

../binutils-2.17/configure --prefix=/usr \
    --enable-shared

Compile the package:

make configure-host

Important

During make configure-host you may receive the following error message. It is safe to ignore.

WARNING: `flex' is missing on your system. You should only
need it if you modified a `.l' file. You may need the `Flex'
package in order for those modifications to take effect. You
can get `Flex' from any GNU archive site.
make tooldir=/usr

The meaning of the make parameter:

tooldir=/usr

Normally, the tooldir (the directory where the executables will ultimately be located) is set to $(exec_prefix)/$(target_alias). Because this is a custom system, this target-specific directory in /usr is not required.

Important

The test suite for Binutils is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance.

Test the results:

make check

Install the package:

make tooldir=/usr install

Install the libiberty header file that is needed by some packages:

cp -v ../binutils-2.17/include/libiberty.h /usr/include

10.9.2. Contents of Binutils

Installed programs: addr2line, ar, as, c++filt, gprof, ld, nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, readelf, size, strings, and strip
Installed libraries: libiberty.a, libbfd.[a,so], and libopcodes.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

addr2line

Translates program addresses to file names and line numbers; given an address and the name of an executable, it uses the debugging information in the executable to determine which source file and line number are associated with the address

ar

Creates, modifies, and extracts from archives

as

An assembler that assembles the output of gcc into object files

c++filt

Used by the linker to de-mangle C++ and Java symbols and to keep overloaded functions from clashing

gprof

Displays call graph profile data

ld

A linker that combines a number of object and archive files into a single file, relocating their data and tying up symbol references

nm

Lists the symbols occurring in a given object file

objcopy

Translates one type of object file into another

objdump

Displays information about the given object file, with options controlling the particular information to display; the information shown is useful to programmers who are working on the compilation tools

ranlib

Generates an index of the contents of an archive and stores it in the archive; the index lists all of the symbols defined by archive members that are relocatable object files

readelf

Displays information about ELF type binaries

size

Lists the section sizes and the total size for the given object files

strings

Outputs, for each given file, the sequences of printable characters that are of at least the specified length (defaulting to four); for object files, it prints, by default, only the strings from the initializing and loading sections while for other types of files, it scans the entire file

strip

Discards symbols from object files

libiberty

Contains routines used by various GNU programs, including getopt, obstack, strerror, strtol, and strtoul

libbfd

The Binary File Descriptor library

libopcodes

A library for dealing with opcodes—the “readable text” versions of instructions for the processor; it is used for building utilities like objdump.

10.10. GCC-4.1.1

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

10.10.1. Installation of GCC

The following patch fixes the searching of multilib dirs for specs file. The patch standardizes the gcc drivers path iteration functions, ensuring multilib directories are searched in the correct order. This fixes various issues, most noticably with libtool on multilib systems:

patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-4.1.1-PR20425-1.patch

Apply a sed substitution that will suppress the installation of libiberty.a. The version of libiberty.a provided by Binutils will be used instead:

sed -i 's/install_to_$(INSTALL_DEST) //' libiberty/Makefile.in

GCC provides a gccbug script which detects at compile time whether mktemp is present, and hardcodes the result in a test. If mktemp is not found, the script will fall back to using less random names for temporary files. We will be installing mktemp later, so the following sed will simulate its presence:

sed -i 's/@have_mktemp_command@/yes/' gcc/gccbug.in

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC for compilation:

../gcc-4.1.1/configure --prefix=/usr \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix \
    --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-c99 --enable-long-long \
    --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-languages=c,c++ \
    --disable-multilib --disable-libstdcxx-pch

Compile the package:

make bootstrap

Important

The test suite for GCC is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance.

Test the results, but do not stop at errors:

make -k check

The -k flag is used to make the test suite run through to completion and not stop at the first failure. The GCC test suite is very comprehensive and is almost guaranteed to generate a few failures. To receive a summary of the test suite results, run:

../gcc-4.1.1/contrib/test_summary

For only the summaries, pipe the output through grep -A7 Summ.

A few unexpected failures cannot always be avoided. The GCC developers are usually aware of these issues, but have not resolved them yet.

Install the package:

make install

Some packages expect the C preprocessor to be installed in the /lib directory. To support those packages, create this symlink:

ln -sv ../usr/bin/cpp /lib

Many packages use the name cc to call the C compiler. To satisfy those packages, create a symlink:

ln -sv gcc /usr/bin/cc

10.10.2. Contents of GCC

Installed programs: c++, cc (link to gcc), cpp, g++, gcc, gccbug, and gcov
Installed libraries: libgcc.a, libgcc_eh.a, libgcc_s.so, libmudflap.[a,so], libmudflapth.[a,so], libstdc++.[a,so], and libsupc++.a

Short Descriptions

cc

The C compiler

cpp

The C preprocessor; it is used by the compiler to expand the #include, #define, and similar statements in the source files

c++

The C++ compiler

g++

The C++ compiler

gcc

The C compiler

gccbug

A shell script used to help create useful bug reports

gcov

A coverage testing tool; it is used to analyze programs to determine where optimizations will have the most effect

libgcc

Contains run-time support for gcc

libmudflap

The libmudflap libraries are used by GCC for instrumenting pointer and array dereferencing operations.

libstdc++

The standard C++ library

libsupc++

Provides supporting routines for the C++ programming language

10.11. Coreutils-5.96

The Coreutils package contains utilities for showing and setting the basic system characteristics.

10.11.1. Installation of Coreutils

Prevent Coreutils from installing binaries that will be installed by other packages:

patch -Np1 -i ../coreutils-5.96-suppress_uptime_kill_su-1.patch

Now prepare Coreutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

The test suite of Coreutils makes several assumptions about the presence of system users and groups that are not valid within the minimal environment that exists at the moment. Therefore, additional items need to be set up before running the tests. Skip down to “Install the package” if not running the test suite.

Create two dummy groups and a dummy user:

echo "dummy1:x:1000:" >> /etc/group
echo "dummy2:x:1001:dummy" >> /etc/group
echo "dummy:x:1000:1000::/root:/bin/bash" >> /etc/passwd

Now the test suite is ready to be run. First, run the tests that are meant to be run as user root:

make NON_ROOT_USERNAME=dummy check-root

Then run the remainder of the tests as the dummy user:

src/su dummy -c "make RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes check"

When testing is complete, remove the dummy user and groups:

sed -i '/dummy/d' /etc/passwd /etc/group

Install the package:

make install

Move programs to the locations specified by the FHS:

mv -v /usr/bin/{cat,chgrp,chmod,chown,cp,date} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/{dd,df,echo,false,hostname,ln,ls,mkdir,mknod} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/{mv,pwd,rm,rmdir,stty,true,uname} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/chroot /usr/sbin

Other Coreutils programs are used by some of the scripts in the CLFS-Bootscripts package. As /usr may not be available during the early stages of booting, those binaries need to be on the root partition:

mv -v /usr/bin/{[,basename,head,install,nice} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/{readlink,sleep,sync,test,touch} /bin
ln -svf ../../bin/install /usr/bin

10.11.2. Contents of Coreutils

Installed programs: [, basename, cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, chroot, cksum, comm, cp, csplit, cut, date, dd, df, dir, dircolors, dirname, du, echo, env, expand, expr, factor, false, fmt, fold, groups, head, hostid, hostname, id, install, join, link, ln, logname, ls, md5sum, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mv, nice, nl, nohup, od, paste, pathchk, pinky, pr, printenv, printf, ptx, pwd, readlink, rm, rmdir, seq, sha1sum, shred, sleep, sort, split, stat, stty, sum, sync, tac, tail, tee, test, touch, tr, true, tsort, tty, uname, unexpand, uniq, unlink, users, vdir, wc, who, whoami, and yes

Short Descriptions

basename

Strips any path and a given suffix from a file name

cat

Concatenates files to standard output

chgrp

Changes the group ownership of files and directories

chmod

Changes the permissions of each file to the given mode; the mode can be either a symbolic representation of the changes to make or an octal number representing the new permissions

chown

Changes the user and/or group ownership of files and directories

chroot

Runs a command with the specified directory as the / directory

cksum

Prints the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) checksum and the byte counts of each specified file

comm

Compares two sorted files, outputting in three columns the lines that are unique and the lines that are common

cp

Copies files

csplit

Splits a given file into several new files, separating them according to given patterns or line numbers and outputting the byte count of each new file

cut

Prints sections of lines, selecting the parts according to given fields or positions

date

Displays the current time in the given format, or sets the system date

dd

Copies a file using the given block size and count, while optionally performing conversions on it

df

Reports the amount of disk space available (and used) on all mounted file systems, or only on the file systems holding the selected files

dir

Lists the contents of each given directory (the same as the ls command)

dircolors

Outputs commands to set the LS_COLOR environment variable to change the color scheme used by ls

dirname

Strips the non-directory suffix from a file name

du

Reports the amount of disk space used by the current directory, by each of the given directories (including all subdirectories) or by each of the given files

echo

Displays the given strings

env

Runs a command in a modified environment

expand

Converts tabs to spaces

expr

Evaluates expressions

factor

Prints the prime factors of all specified integer numbers

false

Does nothing, unsuccessfully; it always exits with a status code indicating failure

fmt

Reformats the paragraphs in the given files

fold

Wraps the lines in the given files

groups

Reports a user's group memberships

head

Prints the first ten lines (or the given number of lines) of each given file

hostid

Reports the numeric identifier (in hexadecimal) of the host

hostname

Reports or sets the name of the host

id

Reports the effective user ID, group ID, and group memberships of the current user or specified user

install

Copies files while setting their permission modes and, if possible, their owner and group

join

Joins the lines that have identical join fields from two separate files

link

Creates a hard link with the given name to a file

ln

Makes hard links or soft (symbolic) links between files

logname

Reports the current user's login name

ls

Lists the contents of each given directory

md5sum

Reports or checks Message Digest 5 (MD5) checksums

mkdir

Creates directories with the given names

mkfifo

Creates First-In, First-Outs (FIFOs), a “named pipe” in UNIX parlance, with the given names

mknod

Creates device nodes with the given names; a device node is a character special file, a block special file, or a FIFO

mv

Moves or renames files or directories

nice

Runs a program with modified scheduling priority

nl

Numbers the lines from the given files

nohup

Runs a command immune to hangups, with its output redirected to a log file

od

Dumps files in octal and other formats

paste

Merges the given files, joining sequentially corresponding lines side by side, separated by tab characters

pathchk

Checks if file names are valid or portable

pinky

Is a lightweight finger client; it reports some information about the given users

pr

Paginates and columnates files for printing

printenv

Prints the environment

printf

Prints the given arguments according to the given format, much like the C printf function

ptx

Produces a permuted index from the contents of the given files, with each keyword in its context

pwd

Reports the name of the current working directory

readlink

Reports the value of the given symbolic link

rm

Removes files or directories

rmdir

Removes directories if they are empty

seq

Prints a sequence of numbers within a given range and with a given increment

sha1sum

Prints or checks 160-bit Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1) checksums

shred

Overwrites the given files repeatedly with complex patterns, making it difficult to recover the data

sleep

Pauses for the given amount of time

sort

Sorts the lines from the given files

split

Splits the given file into pieces, by size or by number of lines

stat

Displays file or filesystem status

stty

Sets or reports terminal line settings

sum

Prints checksum and block counts for each given file

sync

Flushes file system buffers; it forces changed blocks to disk and updates the super block

tac

Concatenates the given files in reverse

tail

Prints the last ten lines (or the given number of lines) of each given file

tee

Reads from standard input while writing both to standard output and to the given files

test or [

Compares values and checks file types

touch

Changes file timestamps, setting the access and modification times of the given files to the current time; files that do not exist are created with zero length

tr

Translates, squeezes, and deletes the given characters from standard input

true

Does nothing, successfully; it always exits with a status code indicating success

tsort

Performs a topological sort; it writes a completely ordered list according to the partial ordering in a given file

tty

Reports the file name of the terminal connected to standard input

uname

Reports system information

unexpand

Converts spaces to tabs

uniq

Discards all but one of successive identical lines

unlink

Removes the given file

users

Reports the names of the users currently logged on

vdir

Is the same as ls -l

wc

Reports the number of lines, words, and bytes for each given file, as well as a total line when more than one file is given

who

Reports who is logged on

whoami

Reports the user name associated with the current effective user ID

yes

Repeatedly outputs “y” or a given string until killed

10.12. Iana-Etc-2.10

The Iana-Etc package provides data for network services and protocols.

10.12.1. Installation of Iana-Etc

The following command converts the raw data provided by IANA into the correct formats for the /etc/protocols and /etc/services data files:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.12.2. Contents of Iana-Etc

Installed files: /etc/protocols and /etc/services

Short Descriptions

/etc/protocols

Describes the various DARPA Internet protocols that are available from the TCP/IP subsystem

/etc/services

Provides a mapping between friendly textual names for internet services, and their underlying assigned port numbers and protocol types

10.13. M4-1.4.4

The M4 package contains a macro processor.

10.13.1. Installation of M4

Prepare M4 for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.13.2. Contents of M4

Installed program: m4

Short Descriptions

m4

copies the given files while expanding the macros that they contain. These macros are either built-in or user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides performing macro expansion, m4 has built-in functions for including named files, running Unix commands, performing integer arithmetic, manipulating text, recursion, etc. The m4 program can be used either as a front-end to a compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.

10.14. Bison-2.3

The Bison package contains a parser generator.

10.14.1. Installation of Bison

Prepare Bison for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

The configure system causes bison to be built without support for internationalization of error messages if a bison program is not already in $PATH. The following addition will correct this:

echo '#define YYENABLE_NLS 1' >> config.h

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.14.2. Contents of Bison

Installed programs: bison and yacc
Installed library: liby.a

Short Descriptions

bison

Generates, from a series of rules, a program for analyzing the structure of text files; Bison is a replacement for Yacc (Yet Another Compiler Compiler)

yacc

A wrapper for bison, meant for programs that still call yacc instead of bison; it calls bison with the -y option

liby.a

The Yacc library containing implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions; this library is normally not very useful, but POSIX requires it

10.15. Ncurses-5.5

The Ncurses package contains libraries for terminal-independent handling of character screens.

10.15.1. Installation of Ncurses

Prepare Ncurses for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/lib \
    --with-shared --without-debug

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Move the Ncurses static libraries to the proper location:

mv -v /lib/lib{panel,menu,form,ncurses,ncurses++,curses}.a /usr/lib

Create symlinks in /usr/lib:

rm -v /lib/lib{ncurses,menu,panel,form,curses}.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libcurses.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libncurses.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libmenu.so.5 /usr/lib/libmenu.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libpanel.so.5 /usr/lib/libpanel.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libform.so.5 /usr/lib/libform.so

Give the Ncurses dynamic libraries execute permissions:

chmod -v 755 /lib/lib{panel,menu,form,ncurses}.so.5.5

10.15.2. Contents of Ncurses

Installed programs: captoinfo (link to tic), clear, infocmp, infotocap (link to tic), reset (link to tset), tack, tic, toe, tput, and tset
Installed libraries: libcurses.[a,so] (link to libncurses.[a,so]), libform.[a,so], libmenu.[a,so], libncurses++.a, libncurses.[a,so], and libpanel.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

captoinfo

Converts a termcap description into a terminfo description

clear

Clears the screen, if possible

infocmp

Compares or prints out terminfo descriptions

infotocap

Converts a terminfo description into a termcap description

reset

Reinitializes a terminal to its default values

tack

The terminfo action checker; it is mainly used to test the accuracy of an entry in the terminfo database

tic

The terminfo entry-description compiler that translates a terminfo file from source format into the binary format needed for the ncurses library routines. A terminfo file contains information on the capabilities of a certain terminal

toe

Lists all available terminal types, giving the primary name and description for each

tput

Makes the values of terminal-dependent capabilities available to the shell; it can also be used to reset or initialize a terminal or report its long name

tset

Can be used to initialize terminals

libcurses

A link to libncurses

libncurses

Contains functions to display text in many complex ways on a terminal screen; a good example of the use of these functions is the menu displayed during the kernel's make menuconfig

libform

Contains functions to implement forms

libmenu

Contains functions to implement menus

libpanel

Contains functions to implement panels

10.16. Procps-3.2.6

The Procps package contains programs for monitoring processes.

10.16.1. Installation of Procps

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.16.2. Contents of Procps

Installed programs: free, kill, pgrep, pkill, pmap, ps, pwdx, skill, slabtop, snice, sysctl, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w, and watch
Installed library: libproc.so

Short Descriptions

free

Reports the amount of free and used memory (both physical and swap memory) in the system

kill

Sends signals to processes

pgrep

Looks up processes based on their name and other attributes

pkill

Signals processes based on their name and other attributes

pmap

Reports the memory map of the given process

ps

Lists the current running processes

pwdx

Reports the current working directory of a process

skill

Sends signals to processes matching the given criteria

slabtop

Displays detailed kernel slab cache information in real time

snice

Changes the scheduling priority of processes matching the given criteria

sysctl

Modifies kernel parameters at run time

tload

Prints a graph of the current system load average

top

Displays a list of the most CPU intensive processes; it provides an ongoing look at processor activity in real time

uptime

Reports how long the system has been running, how many users are logged on, and the system load averages

vmstat

Reports virtual memory statistics, giving information about processes, memory, paging, block Input/Output (IO), traps, and CPU activity

w

Shows which users are currently logged on, where, and since when

watch

Runs a given command repeatedly, displaying the first screen-full of its output; this allows a user to watch the output change over time

libproc

Contains the functions used by most programs in this package

10.17. Sed-4.1.5

The Sed package contains a stream editor.

10.17.1. Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin --enable-html

The meaning of the new configure option:

--enable-html

This option tells Sed to build and install its HTML documentation.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.17.2. Contents of Sed

Installed program: sed

Short Descriptions

sed

Filters and transforms text files in a single pass

10.18. Libtool-1.5.22

The Libtool package contains the GNU generic library support script. It wraps the complexity of using shared libraries in a consistent, portable interface.

10.18.1. Installation of Libtool

Prepare Libtool for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.18.2. Contents of Libtool

Installed programs: libtool and libtoolize
Installed libraries: libltdl.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

libtool

Provides generalized library-building support services

libtoolize

Provides a standard way to add libtool support to a package

libltdl

Hides the various difficulties of dlopening libraries

10.19. Flex-2.5.33

The Flex package contains a utility for generating programs that recognize patterns in text.

10.19.1. Installation of Flex

Prepare Flex for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

There are some packages that expect to find the lex library in /usr/lib. Create a symlink to account for this:

ln -sv libfl.a /usr/lib/libl.a

A few programs do not know about flex yet and try to run its predecessor, lex. To support those programs, create a wrapper script named lex that calls flex in lex emulation mode:

cat > /usr/bin/lex << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh
# Begin /usr/bin/lex

exec /usr/bin/flex -l "$@"

# End /usr/bin/lex
EOF
chmod -v 755 /usr/bin/lex

10.19.2. Contents of Flex

Installed programs: flex and lex
Installed library: libfl.a

Short Descriptions

flex

A tool for generating programs that recognize patterns in text; it allows for the versatility to specify the rules for pattern-finding, eradicating the need to develop a specialized program

lex

A script that runs flex in lex emulation mode

libfl.a

The flex library

10.20. IPRoute2-2.6.16-060323

The IPRoute2 package contains programs for basic and advanced IPV4-based networking.

10.20.1. Installation of IPRoute2

The arpd binary included in this package is dependent on Berkeley DB. Because arpd is not a very common requirement on a base Linux system, remove the dependency on Berkeley DB by applying the sed command below. If the arpd binary is needed, instructions for compiling Berkeley DB can be found in the BLFS Book at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/server/databases.html#db.

sed -i '/^TARGETS/s@arpd@@g' misc/Makefile

Compile the package:

make SBINDIR=/sbin

The meaning of the make option:

SBINDIR=/sbin

This ensures that the IPRoute2 binaries will install into /sbin. This is the correct location according to the FHS, because some of the IPRoute2 binaries are used by the CLFS-Bootscripts package.

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make SBINDIR=/sbin install

10.20.2. Contents of IPRoute2

Installed programs: ctstat (link to lnstat), ifcfg, ifstat, ip, lnstat, nstat, routef, routel, rtacct, rtmon, rtpr, rtstat (link to lnstat), ss, and tc

Short Descriptions

ctstat

Connection status utility

ifcfg

A shell script wrapper for the ip command

ifstat

Shows the interface statistics, including the amount of transmitted and received packets by interface

ip

The main executable. It has several different functions:

ip link [device] allows users to look at the state of devices and to make changes

ip addr allows users to look at addresses and their properties, add new addresses, and delete old ones

ip neighbor allows users to look at neighbor bindings and their properties, add new neighbor entries, and delete old ones

ip rule allows users to look at the routing policies and change them

ip route allows users to look at the routing table and change routing table rules

ip tunnel allows users to look at the IP tunnels and their properties, and change them

ip maddr allows users to look at the multicast addresses and their properties, and change them

ip mroute allows users to set, change, or delete the multicast routing

ip monitor allows users to continously monitor the state of devices, addresses and routes

lnstat

Provides Linux network statistics. It is a generalized and more feature-complete replacement for the old rtstat program

nstat

Shows network statistics

routef

A component of ip route. This is for flushing the routing tables

routel

A component of ip route. This is for listing the routing tables

rtacct

Displays the contents of /proc/net/rt_acct

rtmon

Route monitoring utility

rtpr

Converts the output of ip -o back into a readable form

rtstat

Route status utility

ss

Similar to the netstat command; shows active connections

tc

Traffic Controlling Executable; this is for Quality Of Service (QOS) and Class Of Service (COS) implementations

tc qdisc allows users to setup the queueing discipline

tc class allows users to setup classes based on the queuing discipline scheduling

tc estimator allows users to estimate the network flow into a network

tc filter allows users to setup the QOS/COS packet filtering

tc policy allows users to setup the QOS/COS policies

10.21. Perl-5.8.8

The Perl package contains the Practical Extraction and Report Language.

10.21.1. Installation of Perl

The following sed causes DynaLoader.a to be built with -fPIC so it can be linked into a shared library later:

sed -i -e "s@pldlflags=''@pldlflags=\"\$cccdlflags\"@g" \
    -e "s@static_target='static'@static_target='static_pic'@g" Makefile.SH

Note

If you are following the boot method you will need to enable the loopback device as well as set a hostname for some of the tests:

ip link set lo up
hostname clfs

Before starting to configure, create a basic /etc/hosts file which will be referenced in one of Perl's configuration files as well as being used used by the testsuite if you run that:

echo "127.0.0.1 localhost $(hostname)" > /etc/hosts

To have full control over the way Perl is set up, you can run the interactive Configure script and hand-pick the way this package is built. If you prefer instead to use the defaults that Perl auto-detects, prepare Perl for compilation with:

./configure.gnu --prefix=/usr \
   -Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 \
   -Dman3dir=/usr/share/man/man3 \
   -Dpager="/bin/less -isR" \
   -Dusethreads

The meaning of the configure option:

-Dpager="/bin/less -isR"

This corrects an error in the way that perldoc invokes the less program.

-Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 -Dman3dir=/usr/share/man/man3

Since Groff is not installed yet, configure.gnu thinks that we do not want man pages for Perl. Issuing these parameters overrides this decision.

-Dusethreads

This tells Perl to use threads.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make test.

Install the package:

make install

10.21.2. Contents of Perl

Installed programs: a2p, c2ph, cpan, dprofpp, enc2xs, find2perl, h2ph, h2xs, instmodsh, libnetcfg, perl, perl5.8.8 (link to perl), perlbug, perlcc, perldoc, perlivp, piconv, pl2pm, pod2html, pod2latex, pod2man, pod2text, pod2usage, podchecker, podselect, prove, psed (link to s2p), pstruct (link to c2ph), s2p, splain, and xsubpp
Installed libraries: Several hundred which cannot all be listed here

Short Descriptions

a2p

Translates awk to Perl

c2ph

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S

cpan

Shell script that provides a command interface to CPAN.pm

dprofpp

Displays Perl profile data

enc2xs

Builds a Perl extension for the Encode module from either Unicode Character Mappings or Tcl Encoding Files

find2perl

Translates find commands to Perl

h2ph

Converts .h C header files to .ph Perl header files

h2xs

Converts .h C header files to Perl extensions

libnetcfg

Can be used to configure the libnet

instmodsh

A shell script for examining installed Perl modules, and can even create a tarball from an installed module

perl

Combines some of the best features of C, sed, awk and sh into a single swiss-army-knife language

perl5.8.8

A hard link to perl

perlbug

Used to generate bug reports about Perl, or the modules that come with it, and mail them

perlcc

Generates executables from Perl programs

perldoc

Displays a piece of documentation in pod format that is embedded in the Perl installation tree or in a Perl script

perlivp

The Perl Installation Verification Procedure; it can be used to verify that Perl and its libraries have been installed correctly

piconv

A Perl version of the character encoding converter iconv

pl2pm

A rough tool for converting Perl4 .pl files to Perl5 .pm modules

pod2html

Converts files from pod format to HTML format

pod2latex

Converts files from pod format to LaTeX format

pod2man

Converts pod data to formatted *roff input

pod2text

Converts pod data to formatted ASCII text

pod2usage

Prints usage messages from embedded pod docs in files

podchecker

Checks the syntax of pod format documentation files

podselect

Displays selected sections of pod documentation

prove

A command-line tool for running tests against Test::Harness

psed

A Perl version of the stream editor sed

pstruct

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S stabs

s2p

Translates sed to Perl

splain

Is used to force verbose warning diagnostics in Perl

xsubpp

Converts Perl XS code into C code

10.22. Readline-5.1

The Readline package is a set of libraries that offers command-line editing and history capabilities.

10.22.1. Installation of Readline

The following patch contains updates from the maintainer. The maintainer of Readline only releases these patches to fix serious issues.

patch -Np1 -i ../readline-5.1-fixes-3.patch

Prepare Readline for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/lib

Compile the package:

make SHLIB_XLDFLAGS=-lncurses

The meaning of the make option:

SHLIB_XLDFLAGS=-lncurses

This option forces Readline to link against the libncurses library.

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Give Readline's dynamic libraries more appropriate permissions:

chmod -v 755 /lib/lib{readline,history}.so*

Now move the static libraries to a more appropriate location:

mv -v /lib/lib{readline,history}.a /usr/lib

Next, remove the .so files in /lib and relink them into /usr/lib.

rm -v /lib/lib{readline,history}.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libreadline.so.5 /usr/lib/libreadline.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libhistory.so.5 /usr/lib/libhistory.so

10.22.2. Contents of Readline

Installed libraries: libhistory.[a,so], and libreadline.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

libhistory

Provides a consistent user interface for recalling lines of history

libreadline

Aids in the consistency of user interface across discrete programs that need to provide a command line interface

10.23. Zlib-1.2.3

The Zlib package contains compression and decompression routines used by some programs.

10.23.1. Installation of Zlib

This patch will add -fPIC to our build and allow us to build a static and shared library at the same time:

patch -Np1 -i ../zlib-1.2.3-fPIC-1.patch

Prepare Zlib for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --shared

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

The previous command installed a .so file in /usr/lib. We will move it into /lib and then relink it to /usr/lib:

mv -v /usr/lib/libz.so.* /lib
ln -svf ../../lib/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/libz.so

Now we fix the permissions on the static library:

chmod -v 644 /usr/lib/libz.a

10.23.2. Contents of Zlib

Installed libraries: libz.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

libz

Contains compression and decompression functions used by some programs

10.24. Autoconf-2.59

The Autoconf package contains programs for producing shell scripts that can automatically configure source code.

10.24.1. Installation of Autoconf

Prepare Autoconf for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check. 2 tests are skipped that use Automake. For full test coverage, Autoconf can be re-tested after Automake has been installed.

Install the package:

make install

10.24.2. Contents of Autoconf

Installed programs: autoconf, autoheader, autom4te, autoreconf, autoscan, autoupdate, and ifnames

Short Descriptions

autoconf

Produces shell scripts that automatically configure software source code packages to adapt to many kinds of Unix-like systems. The configuration scripts it produces are independent—running them does not require the autoconf program.

autoheader

A tool for creating template files of C #define statements for configure to use

autom4te

A wrapper for the M4 macro processor

autoreconf

Automatically runs autoconf, autoheader, aclocal, automake, gettextize, and libtoolize in the correct order to save time when changes are made to autoconf and automake template files

autoscan

Helps to create a configure.in file for a software package; it examines the source files in a directory tree, searching them for common portability issues, and creates a configure.scan file that serves as as a preliminary configure.in file for the package

autoupdate

Modifies a configure.in file that still calls autoconf macros by their old names to use the current macro names

ifnames

Helps when writing configure.in files for a software package; it prints the identifiers that the package uses in C preprocessor conditionals. If a package has already been set up to have some portability, this program can help determine what configure needs to check for. It can also fill in gaps in a configure.in file generated by autoscan

10.25. Automake-1.9.6

The Automake package contains programs for generating Makefiles for use with Autoconf.

10.25.1. Installation of Automake

Prepare Automake for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.25.2. Contents of Automake

Installed programs: acinstall, aclocal, aclocal-1.9, automake, automake-1.9, compile, config.guess, config.sub, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, missing, mkinstalldirs, py-compile, symlink-tree, and ylwrap

Short Descriptions

acinstall

A script that installs aclocal-style M4 files

aclocal

Generates aclocal.m4 files based on the contents of configure.in files

aclocal-1.9

A hard link to aclocal

automake

A tool for automatically generating Makefile.in files from Makefile.am files. To create all the Makefile.in files for a package, run this program in the top-level directory. By scanning the configure.in file, it automatically finds each appropriate Makefile.am file and generates the corresponding Makefile.in file

automake-1.9

A hard link to automake

compile

A wrapper for compilers

config.guess

A script that attempts to guess the canonical triplet for the given build, host, or target architecture

config.sub

A configuration validation subroutine script

depcomp

A script for compiling a program so that dependency information is generated in addition to the desired output

elisp-comp

Byte-compiles Emacs Lisp code

install-sh

A script that installs a program, script, or data file

mdate-sh

A script that prints the modification time of a file or directory

missing

A script acting as a common stub for missing GNU programs during an installation

mkinstalldirs

A script that creates a directory tree

py-compile

Compiles a Python program

symlink-tree

A script to create a symlink tree of a directory tree

ylwrap

A wrapper for lex and yacc

10.26. Bash-3.1

The Bash package contains the Bourne-Again SHell.

10.26.1. Installation of Bash

If you downloaded the Bash documentation tarball and wish to install HTML documentation, issue the following commands:

tar -xvf ../bash-doc-3.1.tar.gz &&
sed -i "s|htmldir = @htmldir@|htmldir = /usr/share/doc/bash-3.1|" \
    Makefile.in

The following patch contains updates from the maintainer. The maintainer of Bash only releases these patches to fix serious issues.

patch -Np1 -i ../bash-3.1-fixes-8.patch

Prepare Bash for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin \
    --without-bash-malloc --with-installed-readline

The meaning of the configure option:

--with-installed-readline

This option tells Bash to use the readline library that is already installed on the system rather than using its own readline version.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make tests.

Install the package:

make install

Run the newly compiled bash program (replacing the one that is currently being executed):

exec /bin/bash --login +h

Note

The parameters used make the bash process an interactive login shell and continue to disable hashing so that new programs are found as they become available.

10.26.2. Contents of Bash

Installed programs: bash, bashbug, and sh (link to bash)

Short Descriptions

bash

A widely-used command interpreter; it performs many types of expansions and substitutions on a given command line before executing it, thus making this interpreter a powerful tool

bashbug

A shell script to help the user compose and mail standard formatted bug reports concerning bash

sh

A symlink to the bash program; when invoked as sh, bash tries to mimic the startup behavior of historical versions of sh as closely as possible, while conforming to the POSIX standard as well

10.27. Bzip2-1.0.3

The Bzip2 package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. Compressing text files with bzip2 yields a much better compression percentage than with the traditional gzip.

10.27.1. Installation of Bzip2

Apply a patch to install the documentation for this package:

patch -Np1 -i ../bzip2-1.0.3-install_docs-1.patch

The bzgrep command does not escape '|' and '&' in filenames passed to it. This allows arbitrary commands to be executed with the privileges of the user running bzgrep. Apply the following patch to address this:

patch -Np1 -i ../bzip2-1.0.3-bzgrep_security-1.patch

The bzdiff script depends on tempfile. We remove that dependency with this patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../bzip2-1.0.3-remove_tempfile-1.patch

The Bzip2 package does not contain a configure script. Compile it with:

make -f Makefile-libbz2_so
make clean

The -f flag will cause Bzip2 to be built using a different Makefile file, in this case the Makefile-libbz2_so file, which creates a dynamic libbz2.so library and links the Bzip2 utilities against it.

Recompile the package using a non-shared library and test it:

make

Note

If reinstalling Bzip2, perform rm -vf /usr/bin/bz* first, otherwise the following make install will fail.

Install the programs:

make install

Install the shared bzip2 binary into the /bin directory, make some necessary symbolic links, and clean up:

cp -v bzip2-shared /bin/bzip2
cp -av libbz2.so* /lib
ln -sv ../../lib/libbz2.so.1.0 /usr/lib/libbz2.so
rm -v /usr/bin/{bunzip2,bzcat,bzip2}
ln -sv bzip2 /bin/bunzip2
ln -sv bzip2 /bin/bzcat

10.27.2. Contents of Bzip2

Installed programs: bunzip2 (link to bzip2), bzcat (link to bzip2), bzcmp, bzdiff, bzegrep, bzfgrep, bzgrep, bzip2, bzip2recover, bzless, and bzmore
Installed libraries: libbz2.a, libbz2.so (link to libbz2.so.1.0), libbz2.so.1.0 (link to libbz2.so.1.0.3), and libbz2.so.1.0.3

Short Descriptions

bunzip2

Decompresses bzipped files

bzcat

Decompresses to standard output

bzcmp

Runs cmp on bzipped files

bzdiff

Runs diff on bzipped files

bzgrep

Runs grep on bzipped files

bzegrep

Runs egrep on bzipped files

bzfgrep

Runs fgrep on bzipped files

bzip2

Compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting text compression algorithm with Huffman coding; the compression rate is better than that achieved by more conventional compressors using “Lempel-Ziv” algorithms, like gzip

bzip2recover

Tries to recover data from damaged bzipped files

bzless

Runs less on bzipped files

bzmore

Runs more on bzipped files

libbz2*

The library implementing lossless, block-sorting data compression, using the Burrows-Wheeler algorithm

10.28. Diffutils-2.8.7

The Diffutils package contains programs that show the differences between files or directories.

10.28.1. Installation of Diffutils

Prepare Diffutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.28.2. Contents of Diffutils

Installed programs: cmp, diff, diff3, and sdiff

Short Descriptions

cmp

Compares two files and reports whether or in which bytes they differ

diff

Compares two files or directories and reports which lines in the files differ

diff3

Compares three files line by line

sdiff

Merges two files and interactively outputs the results

10.29. E2fsprogs-1.39

The E2fsprogs package contains the utilities for handling the ext2 file system. It also supports the ext3 journaling file system.

10.29.1. Installation of E2fsprogs

The E2fsprogs documentation recommends that the package be built in a subdirectory of the source tree:

mkdir -v build
cd build

Prepare E2fsprogs for compilation:

../configure --prefix=/usr --with-root-prefix="" \
    --enable-elf-shlibs --disable-evms

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-root-prefix=""

Certain programs (such as the e2fsck program) are considered essential programs. When, for example, /usr is not mounted, these programs still need to be available. They belong in directories like /lib and /sbin. If this option is not passed to E2fsprogs' configure, the programs are installed into the /usr directory.

--enable-elf-shlibs

This creates the shared libraries which some programs in this package use.

--disable-evms

This disables the building of the Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) plugin. This plugin is not up-to-date with the latest EVMS internal interfaces and EVMS is not installed as part of a base CLFS system, so the plugin is not required. See the EVMS website at http://evms.sourceforge.net/ for more information regarding EVMS.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the binaries and documentation:

make install

Install the shared libraries:

make install-libs

10.29.2. Contents of E2fsprogs

Installed programs: badblocks, blkid, chattr, compile_et, debugfs, dumpe2fs, e2fsck, e2image, e2label, filefrag, findfs, fsck, fsck.ext2, fsck.ext3, logsave, lsattr, mk_cmds, mke2fs, mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, mklost+found, resize2fs, tune2fs, and uuidgen.
Installed libraries: libblkid.[a,so], libcom_err.[a,so], libe2p.[a,so], libext2fs.[a,so], libss.[a,so], and libuuid.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

badblocks

Searches a device (usually a disk partition) for bad blocks

blkid

A command line utility to locate and print block device attributes

chattr

Changes the attributes of files on an ext2 file system; it also changes ext3 file systems, the journaling version of ext2 file systems

compile_et

An error table compiler; it converts a table of error-code names and messages into a C source file suitable for use with the com_err library

debugfs

A file system debugger; it can be used to examine and change the state of an ext2 file system

dumpe2fs

Prints the super block and blocks group information for the file system present on a given device

e2fsck

Is used to check, and optionally repair ext2 file systems and ext3 file systems

e2image

Is used to save critical ext2 file system data to a file

e2label

Displays or changes the file system label on the ext2 file system present on a given device

filefrag

Reports on how badly fragmented a particular file might be

findfs

Finds a file system by label or Universally Unique Identifier (UUID)

fsck

Is used to check, and optionally repair, file systems

fsck.ext2

By default checks ext2 file systems

fsck.ext3

By default checks ext3 file systems

logsave

Saves the output of a command in a log file

lsattr

Lists the attributes of files on a second extended file system

mk_cmds

Converts a table of command names and help messages into a C source file suitable for use with the libss subsystem library

mke2fs

Creates an ext2 or ext3 file system on the given device

mkfs.ext2

By default creates ext2 file systems

mkfs.ext3

By default creates ext3 file systems

mklost+found

Used to create a lost+found directory on an ext2 file system; it pre-allocates disk blocks to this directory to lighten the task of e2fsck

resize2fs

Can be used to enlarge or shrink an ext2 file system

tune2fs

Adjusts tunable file system parameters on an ext2 file system

uuidgen

Creates new UUIDs. Each new UUID can reasonably be considered unique among all UUIDs created, on the local system and on other systems, in the past and in the future

libblkid

Contains routines for device identification and token extraction

libcom_err

The common error display routine

libe2p

Used by dumpe2fs, chattr, and lsattr

libext2fs

Contains routines to enable user-level programs to manipulate an ext2 file system

libss

Used by debugfs

libuuid

Contains routines for generating unique identifiers for objects that may be accessible beyond the local system

10.30. File-4.17

The File package contains a utility for determining the type of a given file or files.

10.30.1. Installation of File

Prepare File for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.30.2. Contents of File

Installed programs: file
Installed library: libmagic.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

file

Tries to classify each given file; it does this by performing several tests—file system tests, magic number tests, and language tests

libmagic

Contains routines for magic number recognition, used by the file program

10.31. Findutils-4.2.27

The Findutils package contains programs to find files. These programs are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to create, maintain, and search a database (often faster than the recursive find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).

10.31.1. Installation of Findutils

Prepare Findutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/lib/locate \
    --localstatedir=/var/lib/locate

The meaning of the configure options:

--localstatedir

This option changes the location of the locate database to be in /var/lib/locate, which is FHS-compliant.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

The find program is used by some of the scripts in the CLFS-Bootscripts package. As /usr may not be available during the early stages of booting, the find binary needs to be on the root partition:

mv -v /usr/bin/find /bin

The updatedb script needs to be modified to point to the new location for find:

sed -i 's@find:=${BINDIR}@find:=/bin@' /usr/bin/updatedb

10.31.2. Contents of Findutils

Installed programs: bigram, code, find, frcode, locate, updatedb, and xargs

Short Descriptions

bigram

Was formerly used to produce locate databases

code

Was formerly used to produce locate databases; it is the ancestor of frcode.

find

Searches given directory trees for files matching the specified criteria

frcode

Is called by updatedb to compress the list of file names; it uses front-compression, reducing the database size by a factor of four to five.

locate

Searches through a database of file names and reports the names that contain a given string or match a given pattern

updatedb

Updates the locate database; it scans the entire file system (including other file systems that are currently mounted, unless told not to) and puts every file name it finds into the database

xargs

Can be used to apply a given command to a list of files

10.32. Gawk-3.1.5

The Gawk package contains programs for manipulating text files.

10.32.1. Installation of Gawk

Patch Gawk to fix a bug which causes it to segfault when invoked on a non-existent file:

patch -Np1 -i ../gawk-3.1.5-segfault_fix-1.patch

Prepare Gawk for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/lib

Now fix an issue that will cause the Gettext testsuite to fail:

echo '#define HAVE_LC_MESSAGES 1' >> config.h

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.32.2. Contents of Gawk

Installed programs: awk (link to gawk), gawk, gawk-3.1.5, grcat, igawk, pgawk, pgawk-3.1.5, and pwcat

Short Descriptions

awk

A link to gawk

gawk

A program for manipulating text files; it is the GNU implementation of awk

gawk-3.1.5

A hard link to gawk

grcat

Dumps the group database /etc/group

igawk

Gives gawk the ability to include files

pgawk

The profiling version of gawk

pgawk-3.1.5

Hard link to pgawk

pwcat

Dumps the password database /etc/passwd

10.33. Gettext-0.14.5

The Gettext package contains utilities for internationalization and localization. These allow programs to be compiled with NLS (Native Language Support), enabling them to output messages in the user's native language.

10.33.1. Installation of Gettext

Prepare Gettext for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.33.2. Contents of Gettext

Installed programs: autopoint, config.charset, config.rpath, envsubst, gettext, gettext.sh, gettextize, hostname, msgattrib, msgcat, msgcmp, msgcomm, msgconv, msgen, msgexec, msgfilter, msgfmt, msggrep, msginit, msgmerge, msgunfmt, msguniq, ngettext, and xgettext
Installed libraries: libasprintf.[a,so], libgettextlib.so, libgettextpo.[a,so], and libgettextsrc.so

Short Descriptions

autopoint

Copies standard Gettext infrastructure files into a source package

config.charset

Outputs a system-dependent table of character encoding aliases

config.rpath

Outputs a system-dependent set of variables, describing how to set the runtime search path of shared libraries in an executable

envsubst

Substitutes environment variables in shell format strings

gettext

Translates a natural language message into the user's language by looking up the translation in a message catalog

gettext.sh

Primarily serves as a shell function library for gettext

gettextize

Copies all standard Gettext files into the given top-level directory of a package to begin internationalizing it

hostname

Displays a network hostname in various forms

msgattrib

Filters the messages of a translation catalog according to their attributes and manipulates the attributes

msgcat

Concatenates and merges the given .po files

msgcmp

Compares two .po files to check that both contain the same set of msgid strings

msgcomm

Finds the messages that are common to to the given .po files

msgconv

Converts a translation catalog to a different character encoding

msgen

Creates an English translation catalog

msgexec

Applies a command to all translations of a translation catalog

msgfilter

Applies a filter to all translations of a translation catalog

msgfmt

Generates a binary message catalog from a translation catalog

msggrep

Extracts all messages of a translation catalog that match a given pattern or belong to some given source files

msginit

Creates a new .po file, initializing the meta information with values from the user's environment

msgmerge

Combines two raw translations into a single file

msgunfmt

Decompiles a binary message catalog into raw translation text

msguniq

Unifies duplicate translations in a translation catalog

ngettext

Displays native language translations of a textual message whose grammatical form depends on a number

xgettext

Extracts the translatable message lines from the given source files to make the first translation template

libasprintf

defines the autosprintf class, which makes C formatted output routines usable in C++ programs, for use with the <string> strings and the <iostream> streams

libgettextlib

a private library containing common routines used by the various Gettext programs; these are not intended for general use

libgettextpo

Used to write specialized programs that process .po files; this library is used when the standard applications shipped with Gettext (such as msgcomm, msgcmp, msgattrib, and msgen) will not suffice

libgettextsrc

A private library containing common routines used by the various Gettext programs; these are not intended for general use

10.34. Grep-2.5.1a

The Grep package contains programs for searching through files.

10.34.1. Installation of Grep

Prepare Grep for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.34.2. Contents of Grep

Installed programs: egrep (link to grep), fgrep (link to grep), and grep

Short Descriptions

egrep

Prints lines matching an extended regular expression

fgrep

Prints lines matching a list of fixed strings

grep

Prints lines matching a basic regular expression

10.35. Groff-1.19.2

The Groff package contains programs for processing and formatting text.

10.35.1. Installation of Groff

Groff expects the environment variable PAGE to contain the default paper size. For users in the United States, PAGE=letter is appropriate. Elsewhere, PAGE=A4 may be more suitable.

Prepare Groff for compilation:

PAGE=[paper_size] ./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Some documentation programs, such as xman, will not work properly without the following symlinks:

ln -sv soelim /usr/bin/zsoelim
ln -sv eqn /usr/bin/geqn
ln -sv tbl /usr/bin/gtbl

10.35.2. Contents of Groff

Installed programs: addftinfo, afmtodit, eqn, eqn2graph, gdiffmk, geqn (link to eqn), grap2graph, grn, grodvi, groff, groffer, grog, grolbp, grolj4, grops, grotty, gtbl (link to tbl), hpftodit, indxbib, lkbib, lookbib, mmroff, neqn, nroff, pdfroff, pfbtops, pic, pic2graph, post-grohtml, pre-grohtml, refer, soelim, tbl, tfmtodit, troff, and zsoelim (link to soelim)

Short Descriptions

addftinfo

Reads a troff font file and adds some additional font-metric information that is used by the groff system

afmtodit

Creates a font file for use with groff and grops

eqn

Compiles descriptions of equations embedded within troff input files into commands that are understood by troff

eqn2graph

Converts a troff EQN (equation) into a cropped image

gdiffmk

Marks differences between groff/nroff/troff files

geqn

A link to eqn

grap2graph

Converts a grap diagram into a cropped bitmap image

grn

A groff preprocessor for gremlin files

grodvi

A driver for groff that produces TeX dvi format

groff

A front-end to the groff document formatting system; normally, it runs the troff program and a post-processor appropriate for the selected device

groffer

Displays groff files and man pages on X and tty terminals

grog

Reads files and guesses which of the groff options -e, -man, -me, -mm, -ms, -p, -s, and -t are required for printing files, and reports the groff command including those options

grolbp

Is a groff driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser printers)

grolj4

Is a driver for groff that produces output in PCL5 format suitable for an HP LaserJet 4 printer

grops

Translates the output of GNU troff to PostScript

grotty

Translates the output of GNU troff into a form suitable for typewriter-like devices

gtbl

A link to tbl

hpftodit

Creates a font file for use with groff -Tlj4 from an HP-tagged font metric file

indxbib

Creates an inverted index for the bibliographic databases with a specified file for use with refer, lookbib, and lkbib

lkbib

Searches bibliographic databases for references that contain specified keys and reports any references found

lookbib

Prints a prompt on the standard error (unless the standard input is not a terminal), reads a line containing a set of keywords from the standard input, searches the bibliographic databases in a specified file for references containing those keywords, prints any references found on the standard output, and repeats this process until the end of input

mmroff

A simple preprocessor for groff

neqn

Formats equations for American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) output

nroff

A script that emulates the nroff command using groff

pdfroff

Creates pdf documents using groff

pfbtops

Translates a PostScript font in .pfb format to ASCII

pic

Compiles descriptions of pictures embedded within troff or TeX input files into commands understood by TeX or troff

pic2graph

Converts a PIC diagram into a cropped image

post-grohtml

Translates the output of GNU troff to HTML

pre-grohtml

Translates the output of GNU troff to HTML

refer

Copies the contents of a file to the standard output, except that lines between .[ and .] are interpreted as citations, and lines between .R1 and .R2 are interpreted as commands for how citations are to be processed

soelim

Reads files and replaces lines of the form .so file by the contents of the mentioned file

tbl

Compiles descriptions of tables embedded within troff input files into commands that are understood by troff

tfmtodit

Creates a font file for use with groff -Tdvi

troff

Is highly compatible with Unix troff; it should usually be invoked using the groff command, which will also run preprocessors and post-processors in the appropriate order and with the appropriate options

zsoelim

A link to soelim

10.36. Gzip-1.3.5

The Gzip package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files.

10.36.1. Installation of Gzip

The following patch fixes two security vulnerabilities in Gzip: a path traversal bug when using the -N option (CAN-2005-1228), and a race condition in the file permission restore code (CAN-2005-0998):

patch -Np1 -i ../gzip-1.3.5-security_fixes-1.patch

The gzexe command calls tail with options that do not conform to newer versions of the POSIX standard, and therefore are not accepted by current versions of Coreutils. Fix this problem by issuing the following command:

sed -i 's/tail +/tail -n +/' gzexe.in

Prepare Gzip for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

The gzexe script has the location of the gzip binary hard-wired into it. Because the location of the binary is changed later, the following command ensures that the new location gets placed into the script:

sed -i 's@"BINDIR"@/bin@g' gzexe.in

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Move the gzip program to the /bin directory and create some commonly used symlinks to it:

mv -v /usr/bin/gzip /bin
rm -v /usr/bin/{gunzip,zcat}
ln -sv gzip /bin/gunzip
ln -sv gzip /bin/zcat
ln -sv gzip /bin/compress
ln -sv gunzip /bin/uncompress

10.36.2. Contents of Gzip

Installed programs: compress (link to gzip), gunzip (link to gzip), gzexe, gzip, uncompress (link to gunzip), zcat (link to gzip), zcmp, zdiff, zegrep, zfgrep, zforce, zgrep, zless, zmore, and znew

Short Descriptions

compress

Compresses and decompresses files

gunzip

Decompresses gzipped files

gzexe

Creates self-decompressing executable files

gzip

Compresses the given files using Lempel-Ziv (LZ77) coding

uncompress

Decompresses compressed files

zcat

Decompresses the given gzipped files to standard output

zcmp

Runs cmp on gzipped files

zdiff

Runs diff on gzipped files

zegrep

Runs egrep on gzipped files

zfgrep

Runs fgrep on gzipped files

zforce

Forces a .gz extension on all given files that are gzipped files, so that gzip will not compress them again; this can be useful when file names were truncated during a file transfer

zgrep

Runs grep on gzipped files

zless

Runs less on gzipped files

zmore

Runs more on gzipped files

znew

Re-compresses files from compress format to gzip format—.Z to .gz

10.37. Inetutils-1.4.2

The Inetutils package contains programs for basic networking.

10.37.1. Installation of Inetutils

Not all programs that come with Inetutils will be installed. However, the Inetutils build system will insist on installing all the man pages anyway. The following patch will correct this situation:

patch -Np1 -i ../inetutils-1.4.2-no_server_man_pages-1.patch

This patch addresses build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../inetutils-1.4.2-gcc4_fixes-3.patch

This patch addresses an issue where telnet on certain machines will only send to 255.255.255.255. This was due to change in the way glibc handles inet_addr. Apply the following patch to correct this issue:

patch -Np1 -i ../inetutils-1.4.2-inet_addr_fix-1.patch

Prepare Inetutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/sbin \
    --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var \
    --disable-logger --disable-syslogd \
    --disable-whois --disable-servers

The meaning of the configure options:

--disable-logger

This option prevents Inetutils from installing the logger program, which is used by scripts to pass messages to the System Log Daemon. Do not install it because Util-linux installs a better version later.

--disable-syslogd

This option prevents Inetutils from installing the System Log Daemon, which is installed with the Sysklogd package.

--disable-whois

This option disables the building of the Inetutils whois client, which is out of date. Instructions for a better whois client are in the BLFS book.

--disable-servers

This disables the installation of the various network servers included as part of the Inetutils package. These servers are deemed not appropriate in a basic CLFS system. Some are insecure by nature and are only considered safe on trusted networks. More information can be found at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/basicnet/inetutils.html. Note that better replacements are available for many of these servers.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Move the ping program to its FHS-compliant place:

mv -v /usr/bin/ping /bin

10.37.2. Contents of Inetutils

Installed programs: ftp, ping, rcp, rlogin, rsh, talk, telnet, and tftp

Short Descriptions

ftp

Is the file transfer protocol program

ping

Sends echo-request packets and reports how long the replies take

rcp

Performs remote file copy

rlogin

Performs remote login

rsh

Runs a remote shell

talk

Is used to chat with another user

telnet

An interface to the TELNET protocol

tftp

A trivial file transfer program

10.38. Kbd-1.12

The Kbd package contains key-table files and keyboard utilities.

10.38.1. Installation of Kbd

The following patch fixes build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../kbd-1.12-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

Prepare Kbd for compilation:

./configure --datadir=/lib/kbd

The meaning of the configure options:

--datadir

This option places the Kbd data and keymap files into /lib/kbd, as they are used by some of the scripts in the CLFS-Bootscripts package and must be on the root partition.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Some of the programs from Kbd are used by scripts in the CLFS-Bootscripts package. As /usr may not be available during the early stages of booting, those binaries need to be on the root partition:

mv -v /usr/bin/{kbd_mode,openvt,setfont} /bin

10.38.2. Contents of Kbd

Installed programs: chvt, deallocvt, dumpkeys, fgconsole, getkeycodes, kbd_mode, kbdrate, loadkeys, loadunimap, mapscrn, openvt, psfaddtable (link to psfxtable), psfgettable (link to psfxtable), psfstriptable (link to psfxtable), psfxtable, resizecons, setfont, setkeycodes, setleds, setmetamode, showconsolefont, showkey, unicode_start, and unicode_stop

Short Descriptions

chvt

Changes the foreground virtual terminal

deallocvt

Deallocates unused virtual terminals

dumpkeys

Dumps the keyboard translation tables

fgconsole

Prints the number of the active virtual terminal

getkeycodes

Prints the kernel scancode-to-keycode mapping table

kbd_mode

Reports or sets the keyboard mode

kbdrate

Sets the keyboard repeat and delay rates

loadkeys

Loads the keyboard translation tables

loadunimap

Loads the kernel unicode-to-font mapping table

mapscrn

An obsolete program that used to load a user-defined output character mapping table into the console driver; this is now done by setfont

openvt

Starts a program on a new virtual terminal (VT)

psfaddtable

A link to psfxtable

psfgettable

A link to psfxtable

psfstriptable

A link to psfxtable

psfxtable

Handle Unicode character tables for console fonts

resizecons

Changes the kernel idea of the console size

setfont

Changes the Enhanced Graphic Adapter (EGA) and Video Graphics Array (VGA) fonts on the console

setkeycodes

Loads kernel scancode-to-keycode mapping table entries; this is useful if there are unusual keys on the keyboard

setleds

Sets the keyboard flags and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)

setmetamode

Defines the keyboard meta-key handling

showconsolefont

Shows the current EGA/VGA console screen font

showkey

Reports the scancodes, keycodes, and ASCII codes of the keys pressed on the keyboard

unicode_start

Puts the keyboard and console in UNICODE mode. Never use it on CLFS, because applications are not configured to support UNICODE.

unicode_stop

Reverts keyboard and console from UNICODE mode

10.39. Less-394

The Less package contains a text file viewer.

10.39.1. Installation of Less

Prepare Less for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc

The meaning of the configure option:

--sysconfdir=/etc

This option tells the programs created by the package to look in /etc for the configuration files.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Move less to /bin:

mv -v /usr/bin/less /bin

10.39.2. Contents of Less

Installed programs: less, lessecho, and lesskey

Short Descriptions

less

A file viewer or pager; it displays the contents of the given file, letting the user scroll, find strings, and jump to marks

lessecho

Needed to expand meta-characters, such as * and ?, in filenames on Unix systems

lesskey

Used to specify the key bindings for less

10.40. Make-3.81

The Make package contains a program for compiling packages.

10.40.1. Installation of Make

Prepare Make for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.40.2. Contents of Make

Installed program: make

Short Descriptions

make

Automatically determines which pieces of a package need to be (re)compiled and then issues the relevant commands

10.41. Man-1.6d

The Man package contains programs for finding and viewing man pages.

10.41.1. Installation of Man

A few adjustments need to be made to the sources of Man.

First, a sed substitution is needed to add the -R switch to the PAGER variable so that escape sequences are properly handled by Less:

sed -i 's@-is@&R@g' configure

Another sed substitution comments out the “MANPATH /usr/man” line in the man.conf file to prevent redundant results when using programs such as whatis:

sed -i 's@MANPATH./usr/man@#&@g' src/man.conf.in

Prepare Man for compilation:

./configure -confdir=/etc

The meaning of the configure options:

-confdir=/etc

This tells the man program to look for the man.conf configuration file in the /etc directory.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Note

If you will be working on a terminal that does not support text attributes such as color and bold, you can disable Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) escape sequences by editing the man.conf file and adding the -c option to the NROFF variable. If you use multiple terminal types for one computer it may be better to selectively add the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable for the terminals that do not support SGR.

If the character set of the locale uses 8-bit characters, search for the line beginning with “NROFF” in /etc/man.conf, and verify that it matches the following:

NROFF /usr/bin/nroff -Tlatin1 -mandoc

Note that “latin1” should be used even if it is not the character set of the locale. The reason is that, according to the specification, groff has no means of typesetting characters outside International Organization for Standards (ISO) 8859-1 without some strange escape codes. When formatting man pages, groff thinks that they are in the ISO 8859-1 encoding and this -Tlatin1 switch tells groff to use the same encoding for output. Since groff does no recoding of input characters, the f ormatted result is really in the same encoding as input, and therefore it is usable as the input for a pager.

This does not solve the problem of a non-working man2dvi program for localized man pages in non-ISO 8859-1 locales. Also, it does not work with multibyte character sets. The first problem does not currently have a solution. The second issue is not of concern because the CLFS installation does not support multibyte character sets.

Additional information with regards to the compression of man and info pages can be found in the BLFS book at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/compressdoc.html.

10.41.2. Contents of Man

Installed programs: apropos, makewhatis, man, man2dvi, man2html, and whatis

Short Descriptions

apropos

Searches the whatis database and displays the short descriptions of system commands that contain a given string

makewhatis

Builds the whatis database; it reads all the man pages in the MANPATH and writes the name and a short description in the whatis database for each page

man

Formats and displays the requested on-line man page

man2dvi

Converts a man page into dvi format

man2html

Converts a man page into HTML

whatis

Searches the whatis database and displays the short descriptions of system commands that contain the given keyword as a separate word

10.42. Mktemp-1.5

The Mktemp package contains programs used to create secure temporary files in shell scripts.

10.42.1. Installation of Mktemp

Many scripts still use the deprecated tempfile program, which has functionality similar to mktemp. Patch Mktemp to include a tempfile wrapper:

patch -Np1 -i ../mktemp-1.5-add_tempfile-3.patch

Prepare Mktemp for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --with-libc

The meaning of the configure option:

--with-libc

This causes the mktemp program to use the mkstemp and mkdtemp functions from the system C library.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install
make install-tempfile

10.42.2. Contents of Mktemp

Installed programs: mktemp and tempfile

Short Descriptions

mktemp

Creates temporary files in a secure manner; it is used in scripts

tempfile

Creates temporary files in a less secure manner than mktemp; it is installed for backwards-compatibility

10.43. Module-Init-Tools-3.2.2

The Module-Init-Tools package contains programs for handling kernel modules in Linux kernels greater than or equal to version 2.5.47.

10.43.1. Installation of Module-Init-Tools

Issue the following commands to perform the tests (note that the make distclean command is required to clean up the source tree, as the source gets recompiled as part of the testing process):

./configure &&
make check &&
make distclean

Prepare Module-Init-Tools for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/ --enable-zlib

The meaning of the configure options:

--enable-zlib

This allows the Module-Init-Tools package to handle compressed kernel modules.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make INSTALL=install install

The meaning of the make parameter:

INSTALL=install

Normally, make install will not install the binaries if they already exist. This option overrides that behavior by calling install instead of using the default wrapper script.

10.43.2. Contents of Module-Init-Tools

Installed programs: depmod, generate-modprobe.conf, insmod, insmod.static, lsmod (link to insmod), modinfo, modprobe (link to insmod), and rmmod (link to insmod)

Short Descriptions

depmod

Creates a dependency file based on the symbols it finds in the existing set of modules; this dependency file is used by modprobe to automatically load the required modules

generate-modprobe.conf

Creates a modprobe.conf file from an existing 2.2 or 2.4 module setup

insmod

Installs a loadable module in the running kernel

insmod.static

A statically compiled version of insmod

lsmod

Lists currently loaded modules

modinfo

Examines an object file associated with a kernel module and displays any information that it can glean

modprobe

Uses a dependency file, created by depmod, to automatically load relevant modules

rmmod

Unloads modules from the running kernel

10.44. Patch-2.5.9

The Patch package contains a program for modifying or creating files by applying a “patch” file typically created by the diff program.

10.44.1. Installation of Patch

Prepare Patch for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.44.2. Contents of Patch

Installed program: patch

Short Descriptions

patch

Modifies files according to a patch file. A patch file is normally a difference listing created with the diff program. By applying these differences to the original files, patch creates the patched versions.

10.45. Psmisc-22.2

The Psmisc package contains programs for displaying information about running processes.

10.45.1. Installation of Psmisc

Prepare Psmisc for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=""

The meaning of the configure option:

--exec-prefix=""

This ensures that the Psmisc binaries will install into /bin instead of /usr/bin. This is the correct location according to the FHS, because some of the Psmisc binaries are used by the CLFS-Bootscripts package.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

There is no reason for the pstree and pstree.x11 programs to reside in /bin. Therefore, move them to /usr/bin:

mv -v /bin/pstree* /usr/bin

By default, Psmisc's pidof program is not installed. This usually is not a problem because it is installed later in the Sysvinit package, which provides a better pidof program. If Sysvinit will not be used for a particular system, complete the installation of Psmisc by creating the following symlink:

ln -sv killall /bin/pidof

10.45.2. Contents of Psmisc

Installed programs: fuser, killall, pstree, and pstree.x11 (link to pstree)

Short Descriptions

fuser

Reports the Process IDs (PIDs) of processes that use the given files or file systems

killall

Kills processes by name; it sends a signal to all processes running any of the given commands

oldfuser

Reports the Process IDs (PIDs) of processes that use the given files or file systems

pstree

Displays running processes as a tree

pstree.x11

Same as pstree, except that it waits for confirmation before exiting

10.46. Shadow-4.0.16

The Shadow package contains programs for handling passwords in a secure way.

10.46.1. Installation of Shadow

Note

If you would like to enforce the use of strong passwords, refer to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/cracklib.html for installing Cracklib prior to building Shadow. Then add --with-libcrack to the configure command below.

Prepare Shadow for compilation:

./configure --libdir=/lib --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-shared \
    --without-libpam --without-audit --without-selinux

The meaning of the configure options:

--sysconfdir=/etc

Tells Shadow to install its configuration files into /etc, rather than /usr/etc.

--without-libpam

Support for Linux-PAM is enabled by default in Shadow, however PAM is not installed on a base CLFS system, so this switch disables PAM support in Shadow. For instructions to install PAM and link Shadow to it, you can look at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/shadow.html.

--without-audit

Support for auditing is enabled by default, but a library that it needs is not installed in a base CLFS system. This switch disables auditing support.

--without-selinux

Support for selinux is enabled by default, but selinux is not built in a base CLFS system and configure will fail without this switch.

Disable the installation of the groups program and its man pages, as Coreutils provides a better version:

sed -i 's/groups$(EXEEXT) //' src/Makefile
sed -i '/groups/d' man/Makefile

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Instead of using the default crypt method, use the more secure MD5 method of password encryption, which also allows passwords longer than 8 characters. It is also necessary to change the obsolete /var/spool/mail location for user mailboxes that Shadow uses by default to the /var/mail location used currently. Use the following sed command to make these changes to the appropriate configuration file:

sed -i /etc/login.defs \
    -e 's@#MD5_CRYPT_ENAB.no@MD5_CRYPT_ENAB yes@' \
    -e 's@/var/spool/mail@/var/mail@'

Note

If you built Shadow with Cracklib support, execute this sed to correct the path to the Cracklib dictionary:

sed -i 's@DICTPATH.*@DICTPATH\t/lib/cracklib/pw_dict@' /etc/login.defs

Move a misplaced program to its proper location:

mv -v /usr/bin/passwd /bin

Move Shadow's dynamic libraries to a more appropriate location:

mv -v /lib/libshadow.*a /usr/lib
rm -v /lib/libshadow.so
ln -svf ../../lib/libshadow.so.0 /usr/lib/libshadow.so

10.46.2. Configuring Shadow

This package contains utilities to add, modify, and delete users and groups; set and change their passwords; and perform other administrative tasks. For a full explanation of what password shadowing means, see the doc/HOWTO file within the unpacked source tree. If using Shadow support, keep in mind that programs which need to verify passwords (display managers, FTP programs, pop3 daemons, etc.) must be Shadow-compliant. That is, they need to be able to work with shadowed passwords.

To enable shadowed passwords, run the following command:

pwconv

To enable shadowed group passwords, run:

grpconv

To view or change the default settings for new user accounts that you create, you can edit /etc/default/useradd. See man useradd or http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/skel.html for more information.

10.46.3. Setting the root password

Choose a password for user root and set it by running:

passwd root

10.46.4. Contents of Shadow

Installed programs: chage, chfn, chpasswd, chgpasswd, chsh, expiry, faillog, gpasswd, groupadd, groupdel, groupmod, grpck, grpconv, grpunconv, lastlog, login, logoutd, newgrp, newusers, nologin, passwd, pwck, pwconv, pwunconv, sg (link to newgrp), useradd, userdel, usermod, vigr (link to vipw), and vipw
Installed libraries: libshadow.[a,so]

Short Descriptions

chage

Used to change the maximum number of days between obligatory password changes

chfn

Used to change a user's full name and other information

chgpasswd

Used to update group passwords in batch mode

chpasswd

Used to update the passwords of an entire series of user accounts

chsh

Used to change a user's default login shell

expiry

Checks and enforces the current password expiration policy

faillog

Is used to examine the log of login failures, to set a maximum number of failures before an account is blocked, or to reset the failure count

gpasswd

Is used to add and delete members and administrators to groups

groupadd

Creates a group with the given name

groupdel

Deletes the group with the given name

groupmod

Is used to modify the given group's name or GID

grpck

Verifies the integrity of the group files /etc/group and /etc/gshadow

grpconv

Creates or updates the shadow group file from the normal group file

grpunconv

Updates /etc/group from /etc/gshadow and then deletes the latter

lastlog

Reports the most recent login of all users or of a given user

login

Is used by the system to let users sign on

logoutd

Is a daemon used to enforce restrictions on log-on time and ports

newgrp

Is used to change the current GID during a login session

newusers

Is used to create or update an entire series of user accounts

nologin

Displays a message that an account is not available. Designed to be used as the default shell for accounts that have been disabled

passwd

Is used to change the password for a user or group account

pwck

Verifies the integrity of the password files /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

pwconv

Creates or updates the shadow password file from the normal password file

pwunconv

Updates /etc/passwd from /etc/shadow and then deletes the latter

sg

Executes a given command while the user's GID is set to that of the given group

su

Runs a shell with substitute user and group IDs

useradd

Creates a new user with the given name, or updates the default new-user information

userdel

Deletes the given user account

usermod

Is used to modify the given user's login name, User Identification (UID), shell, initial group, home directory, etc.

vigr

Edits the /etc/group or /etc/gshadow files

vipw

Edits the /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow files

libshadow

Contains functions used by most programs in this package

10.47. Sysklogd-1.4.1

The Sysklogd package contains programs for logging system messages, such as those given by the kernel when unusual things happen.

10.47.1. Installation of Sysklogd

The following patch fixes various issues, including a problem building Sysklogd with Linux 2.6 series kernels:

patch -Np1 -i ../sysklogd-1.4.1-fixes-1.patch

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

10.47.2. Configuring Sysklogd

Create a new /etc/syslog.conf file by running the following:

cat > /etc/syslog.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/syslog.conf

auth,authpriv.*                 -/var/log/auth.log
*.*;auth,authpriv.none          -/var/log/sys.log
daemon.*                        -/var/log/daemon.log
kern.*                          -/var/log/kern.log
mail.*                          -/var/log/mail.log
user.*                          -/var/log/user.log
*.=info;*.=notice;*.=warn;\
auth,authpriv.none;\
cron,daemon.none;\
mail,news.none                  -/var/log/messages.log

*.emerg                         *

# log the bootscript output:
local2.*                        -/var/log/boot.log

# End /etc/syslog.conf
EOF

10.47.3. Contents of Sysklogd

Installed programs: klogd and syslogd

Short Descriptions

klogd

A system daemon for intercepting and logging kernel messages

syslogd

Logs the messages that system programs offer for logging. Every logged message contains at least a date stamp and a hostname, and normally the program's name too, but that depends on how trusting the logging daemon is told to be.

10.48. Sysvinit-2.86

The Sysvinit package contains programs for controlling the startup, running, and shutdown of the system.

10.48.1. Installation of Sysvinit

When run-levels are changed (for example, when halting the system), init sends termination signals to those processes that init itself started and that should not be running in the new run-level. While doing this, init outputs messages like “Sending processes the TERM signal” which seem to imply that it is sending these signals to all currently running processes. To avoid this misinterpretation, modify the source so that these messages read like “Sending processes started by init the TERM signal” instead:

sed -i 's@Sending processes@& started by init@g' \
    src/init.c

Compile the package:

make -C src clobber
make -C src

Install the package:

make -C src install

10.48.2. Configuring Sysvinit

Create a new file /etc/inittab by running the following:

cat > /etc/inittab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:

si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 0
l1:S1:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 6

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now

su:S016:once:/sbin/sulogin

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty1 9600
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty2 9600
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty3 9600
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty4 9600
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty5 9600
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033(K' tty6 9600

# End /etc/inittab
EOF

The -I '\033(K' option tells agetty to send this escape sequence to the terminal before doing anything else. This escape sequence switches the console character set to a user-defined one, which can be modified by running the setfont program. The console initscript from the CLFS-Bootscripts package calls the setfont program during system startup. Sending this escape sequence is necessary for people who use non-ISO 8859-1 screen fonts, but it does not affect native English speakers.

10.48.3. Contents of Sysvinit

Installed programs: bootlogd, halt, init, killall5, last, lastb (link to last), mesg, mountpoint, pidof (link to killall5), poweroff (link to halt), reboot (link to halt), runlevel, shutdown, sulogin, telinit (link to init), utmpdump, and wall

Short Descriptions

bootlogd

Logs boot messages to a log file

halt

Normally invokes shutdown with the -h option, except when already in run-level 0, then it tells the kernel to halt the system; it notes in the file /var/log/wtmp that the system is being brought down

init

The first process to be started when the kernel has initialized the hardware which takes over the boot process and starts all the proceses it is instructed to

killall5

Sends a signal to all processes, except the processes in its own session so it will not kill the shell running the script that called it

last

Shows which users last logged in (and out), searching back through the /var/log/wtmp file; it also shows system boots, shutdowns, and run-level changes

lastb

Shows the failed login attempts, as logged in /var/log/btmp

mesg

Controls whether other users can send messages to the current user's terminal

mountpoint

Tells you whether or not a directory is a mount point.

pidof

Reports the PIDs of the given programs

poweroff

Tells the kernel to halt the system and switch off the computer (see halt)

reboot

Tells the kernel to reboot the system (see halt)

runlevel

Reports the previous and the current run-level, as noted in the last run-level record in /var/run/utmp

shutdown

Brings the system down in a secure way, signaling all processes and notifying all logged-in users

sulogin

Allows root to log in; it is normally invoked by init when the system goes into single user mode

telinit

Tells init which run-level to change to

utmpdump

Displays the content of the given login file in a more user-friendly format

wall

Writes a message to all logged-in users

10.49. Tar-1.15.1

The Tar package contains an archiving program.

10.49.1. Installation of Tar

Apply a patch to fix some issues with the test suite when using GCC-4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../tar-1.15.1-gcc4_fix_tests-1.patch

Tar has a bug when the -S option is used with files larger than 4 GB. The following patch properly fixes this issue:

patch -Np1 -i ../tar-1.15.1-sparse_fix-1.patch

This patch fixes a security vulnerability in Tar:

patch -Np1 -i ../tar-1.15.1-security_fixes-1.patch

Prepare Tar for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin --libexecdir=/usr/sbin

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

10.49.2. Contents of Tar

Installed programs: rmt and tar

Short Descriptions

rmt

Remotely manipulates a magnetic tape drive through an interprocess communication connection

tar

Creates, extracts files from, and lists the contents of archives, also known as tarballs

10.50. Texinfo-4.8

The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting info pages.

10.50.1. Installation of Texinfo

Texinfo allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files. Apply the following patch to fix this:

patch -Np1 -i ../texinfo-4.8-tempfile_fix-2.patch

Prepare Texinfo for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package:

make install

The Info documentation system uses a plain text file to hold its list of menu entries. The file is located at /usr/share/info/dir. Unfortunately, due to occasional problems in the Makefiles of various packages, it can sometimes get out of sync with the info pages installed on the system. If the /usr/share/info/dir file ever needs to be recreated, the following optional commands will accomplish the task:

cd /usr/share/info
rm dir
for f in *
do install-info $f dir 2>/dev/null
done

10.50.2. Contents of Texinfo

Installed programs: info, infokey, install-info, makeinfo, texi2dvi, texi2pdf, and texindex

Short Descriptions

info

Used to read info pages which are similar to man pages, but often go much deeper than just explaining all the command line options. For example, compare man bison and info bison.

infokey

Compiles a source file containing Info customizations into a binary format

install-info

Used to install info pages; it updates entries in the info index file

makeinfo

Translates the given Texinfo source documents into info pages, plain text, or HTML

texi2dvi

Used to format the given Texinfo document into a device-independent file that can be printed

texi2pdf

Used to format the given Texinfo document into a Portable Document Format (PDF) file

texindex

Used to sort Texinfo index files

10.51. Udev-096

The Udev package contains programs for dynamic creation of device nodes.

10.51.1. Installation of Udev

Compile the package:

make EXTRAS="extras/floppy extras/cdrom_id extras/firmware \
    extras/scsi_id extras/volume_id extras/ata_id extras/usb_id \
    extras/edd_id extras/dasd_id extras/path_id"

The meaning of the make parameter:

EXTRAS="extras/floppy extras/cdrom_id extras/firmware extras/scsi_id extras/volume_id extras/ata_id extras/usb_id extras/edd_id extras/dasd_id extras/path_id"

This builds the helper applications that are used with udev. The helper programs assist in correct handling of devices.

If you want to run the testsuite, you need to change a hardcoded reference to the test program:

sed -i 's@/usr/bin/test@/bin/test@' test/udev-test.pl

To test the results, issue: make test.

Install the package:

make DESTDIR=/ \
    EXTRAS="extras/floppy extras/cdrom_id extras/firmware \
    extras/scsi_id extras/volume_id extras/ata_id extras/usb_id \
    extras/edd_id extras/dasd_id extras/path_id" install

The meaning of the make parameter:

DESTDIR=/

This prevents the Udev build process from killing any udevd processes that may be running on the system.

Install a necessary helper script:

install -v extras/eventrecorder.sh /lib/udev

Install the documentation that explains how to create Udev rules:

install -v -m644 -D docs/writing_udev_rules/index.html \
    /usr/share/doc/udev-096/index.html

Create a directory for storing firmware that can be loaded by udev:

install -dv /lib/firmware

10.51.2. Contents of Udev

Installed programs: udevcontrol, udevd, udevinfo, udevmonitor, udevsend, udevtest, and udevtrigger
Installed directory: /etc/udev

Short Descriptions

udevcontrol

Configures a number of options for the running udevd daemon, such as the log level.

udevd

A daemon that reorders hotplug events before submitting them to udev, thus avoiding various race conditions

udevinfo

Allows users to query the udev database for information on any device currently present on the system; it also provides a way to query any device in the sysfs tree to help create udev rules

udevmonitor

Prints the event received from the kernel and the event which udev sends out after rule processing

udevsettle

Watches the Udev event queue and exits if all current uevents have been handled

udevtest

Simulates a udev run for the given device, and prints out the name of the node the real udev would have created or the name of the renamed network interface

udevtrigger

Walks the sysfs tree for devices that need to be added to the system.

ata_id

Provides Udev with a unique string and additional information (uuid, label) for an ATA drive

cdrom_id

Print the capabilities of a CDROM or DVDROM drive.

create_floppy_devices

Creates all possible floppy devices based on the CMOS type

dasd_id

Read the label from an s390 block device.

edd_id

Identify x86 disk drives from Enhanced Disk Drive calls.

firmware.sh

Script to load firmware for a device

path_id

Provide the shortest possible unique hardware path to a device

scsi_id

Retrieve or generate a unique SCSI identifier.

usb_id

Identify a USB block device.

vol_id

Probe filesystem type and read label and uuid.

/etc/udev

Contains udev configuration files, device permissions, and rules for device naming

/lib/udev

Contains udev helper programs and static devices which get copied to /dev when booted.

10.52. Util-linux-2.12r

The Util-linux package contains miscellaneous utility programs. Among them are utilities for handling file systems, consoles, partitions, and messages.

10.52.1. FHS compliance notes

The FHS recommends using the /var/lib/hwclock directory instead of the usual /etc directory as the location for the adjtime file. To make the hwclock program FHS-compliant, run the following:

sed -i 's@etc/adjtime@var/lib/hwclock/adjtime@g' \
    hwclock/hwclock.c
mkdir -pv /var/lib/hwclock

10.52.2. Installation of Util-linux

Util-linux fails to compile against newer versions of Linux kernel headers. The following patch properly fixes this issue:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-cramfs-1.patch

The following patch fixes build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-gcc4_fixes-1.patch

The following patch fixes swapon.c - it tries to find the variable R_OK, but the header that has R_OK is not included:

patch -Np1 -i ../util-linux-2.12r-missing_header-1.patch

Prepare Util-linux for compilation:

./configure

Compile the package:

make HAVE_KILL=yes HAVE_SLN=yes

The meaning of the make parameters:

HAVE_KILL=yes

This prevents the kill program (already installed by Procps) from being built and installed again.

HAVE_SLN=yes

This prevents the sln program (a statically linked version of ln already installed by Glibc) from being built and installed again.

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package and move the logger binary to /bin as it is needed by the CLFS-Bootscripts package:

make HAVE_KILL=yes HAVE_SLN=yes install
mv -v /usr/bin/logger /bin

10.52.3. Contents of Util-linux

Installed programs: agetty, arch, blockdev, cal, cfdisk, chkdupexe, col, colcrt, colrm, column, ctrlaltdel, cytune, ddate, dmesg, elvtune, fdformat, fdisk, flock, fsck.cramfs, fsck.minix, getopt, hexdump, hwclock, ipcrm, ipcs, isosize, line, logger, look, losetup, mcookie, mkfs, mkfs.bfs, mkfs.cramfs, mkfs.minix, mkswap, more, mount, namei, pg, pivot_root, ramsize (link to rdev), raw, rdev, readprofile, rename, renice, rev, rootflags (link to rdev), script, setfdprm, setsid, setterm, sfdisk, swapoff (link to swapon), swapon, tailf, tunelp, ul, umount, vidmode (link to rdev), whereis, and write

Short Descriptions

agetty

Opens a tty port, prompts for a login name, and then invokes the login program

arch

Reports the machine's architecture

blockdev

Allows users to call block device ioctls from the command line

cal

Displays a simple calendar

cfdisk

Manipulates the partition table of the given device

chkdupexe

Finds duplicate executables

col

Filters out reverse line feeds

colcrt

Filters nroff output for terminals that lack some capabilities, such as overstriking and half-lines

colrm

Filters out the given columns

column

Formats a given file into multiple columns

ctrlaltdel

Sets the function of the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination to a hard or a soft reset

cytune

Tunes the parameters of the serial line drivers for Cyclades cards

ddate

Gives the Discordian date or converts the given Gregorian date to a Discordian one

dmesg

Dumps the kernel boot messages

elvtune

Tunes the performance and interactivity of a block device

fdformat

Low-level formats a floppy disk

fdisk

Manipulates the partition table of the given device

flock

Acquires a file lock and then executes a command with the lock held

fsck.cramfs

Performs a consistency check on the Cramfs file system on the given device

fsck.minix

Performs a consistency check on the Minix file system on the given device

getopt

Parses options in the given command line

hexdump

Dumps the given file in hexadecimal or in another given format

hwclock

Reads or sets the system's hardware clock, also called the Real-Time Clock (RTC) or Basic Input-Output System (BIOS) clock

ipcrm

Removes the given Inter-Process Communication (IPC) resource

ipcs

Provides IPC status information

isosize

Reports the size of an iso9660 file system

line

Copies a single line

logger

Enters the given message into the system log

look

Displays lines that begin with the given string

losetup

Sets up and controls loop devices

mcookie

Generates magic cookies (128-bit random hexadecimal numbers) for xauth

mkfs

Builds a file system on a device (usually a hard disk partition)

mkfs.bfs

Creates a Santa Cruz Operations (SCO) bfs file system

mkfs.cramfs

Creates a cramfs file system

mkfs.minix

Creates a Minix file system

mkswap

Initializes the given device or file to be used as a swap area

more

A filter for paging through text one screen at a time

mount

Attaches the file system on the given device to a specified directory in the file-system tree

namei

Shows the symbolic links in the given pathnames

pg

Displays a text file one screen full at a time

pivot_root

Makes the given file system the new root file system of the current process

ramsize

Sets the size of the RAM disk in a bootable image

raw

Used to bind a Linux raw character device to a block device

rdev

Queries and sets the root device, among other things, in a bootable image

readprofile

Reads kernel profiling information

rename

Renames the given files, replacing a given string with another

renice

Alters the priority of running processes

rev

Reverses the lines of a given file

rootflags

Sets the rootflags in a bootable image

script

Makes a typescript of a terminal session

setfdprm

Sets user-provided floppy disk parameters

setsid

Runs the given program in a new session

setterm

Sets terminal attributes

sfdisk

A disk partition table manipulator

swapoff

Disables devices and files for paging and swapping

swapon

Enables devices and files for paging and swapping and lists the devices and files currently in use

tailf

Tracks the growth of a log file. Displays the last 10 lines of a log file, then continues displaying any new entries in the log file as they are created

tunelp

Tunes the parameters of the line printer

ul

A filter for translating underscores into escape sequences indicating underlining for the terminal in use

umount

Disconnects a file system from the system's file tree

vidmode

Sets the video mode in a bootable image

whereis

Reports the location of the binary, source, and man page for the given command

write

Sends a message to the given user if that user has not disabled receipt of such messages

10.53. Vim-7.0

The Vim package contains a powerful text editor.

Alternatives to Vim

If you prefer another editor—such as Emacs, Joe, or Nano—please refer to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/editors.html for suggested installation instructions.

10.53.1. Installation of Vim

First, unpack both vim-7.0.tar.bz2 and (optionally) vim-7.0-lang.tar.gz archives into the same directory.

The following patch contains updates from the maintainer. The maintainer of Vim only releases these patches to fix serious issues.

patch -Np1 -i ../vim-7.0-fixes-5.patch

Change the default location of the vimrc configuration file to /etc:

echo '#define SYS_VIMRC_FILE "/etc/vimrc"' >> src/feature.h

Prepare Vim for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-multibyte

The meaning of the configure options:

--enable-multibyte

This optional but highly recommended switch enables support for editing files in multibyte character encodings. This is needed if using a locale with a multibyte character set. This switch is also helpful to be able to edit text files initially created in Linux distributions like Fedora Core that use UTF-8 as a default character set.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make test. However, this test suite outputs a lot of binary data to the screen, which can cause issues with the settings of the current terminal. This can be resolved by redirecting the output to a log file.

Install the package:

make install

Many users are accustomed to using vi instead of vim. Some programs, such as vigr and vipw, also use vi. Create a symlink to permit execution of vim when users habitually enter vi and allow programs that use vi to work:

ln -sv vim /usr/bin/vi

By default, Vim's documentation is installed in /usr/share/vim. The following symlink allows the documentation to be accessed via /usr/share/doc/vim-7.0, making it consistent with the location of documentation for other packages:

ln -sv ../vim/vim70/doc /usr/share/doc/vim-7.0

If an X Window System is going to be installed on the CLFS system, you may want to recompile Vim after installing X. Vim comes with a GUI version of the editor that requires X and some additional libraries to be installed. For more information, refer to the Vim documentation and the Vim installation page in the BLFS book at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/editors.html#postlfs-editors-vim.

10.53.2. Configuring Vim

By default, vim runs in vi-incompatible mode. This may be new to users who have used other editors in the past. The “nocompatible” setting is included below to highlight the fact that a new behavior is being used. It also reminds those who would change to “compatible” mode that it should be the first setting in the configuration file. This is necessary because it changes other settings, and overrides must come after this setting. Create a default vim configuration file by running the following:

cat > /etc/vimrc << "EOF"
" Begin /etc/vimrc

set nocompatible
set backspace=2
syntax on
if (&term == "iterm") || (&term == "putty")
  set background=dark
endif

" End /etc/vimrc
EOF

The set nocompatible makes vim behave in a more useful way (the default) than the vi-compatible manner. Remove the “no” to keep the old vi behavior. The set backspace=2 allows backspacing over line breaks, autoindents, and the start of insert. The syntax on enables vim's syntax highlighting. Finally, the if statement with the set background=dark corrects vim's guess about the background color of some terminal emulators. This gives the highlighting a better color scheme for use on the black background of these programs.

Documentation for other available options can be obtained by running the following command:

vim -c ':options'

10.53.3. Contents of Vim

Installed programs: efm_filter.pl, efm_perl.pl, ex (link to vim), less.sh, mve.awk, pltags.pl, ref, rview (link to vim), rvim (link to vim), shtags.pl, tcltags, vi (link to vim), view (link to vim), vim, vim132, vim2html.pl, vimdiff (link to vim), vimm, vimspell.sh, vimtutor, and xxd

Short Descriptions

efm_filter.pl

A filter for creating an error file that can be read by vim

efm_perl.pl

Reformats the error messages of the Perl interpreter for use with the “quickfix” mode of vim

ex

Starts vim in ex mode

less.sh

A script that starts vim with less.vim

mve.awk

Processes vim errors

pltags.pl

Creates a tags file for Perl code for use by vim

ref

Checks the spelling of arguments

rview

Is a restricted version of view; no shell commands can be started and view cannot be suspended

rvim

Is a restricted version of vim; no shell commands can be started and vim cannot be suspended

shtags.pl

Generates a tags file for Perl scripts

tcltags

Generates a tags file for TCL code

view

Starts vim in read-only mode

vi

Link to vim

vim

Is the editor

vim132

Starts vim with the terminal in 132-column mode

vim2html.pl

Converts Vim documentation to HypterText Markup Language (HTML)

vimdiff

Edits two or three versions of a file with vim and show differences

vimm

Enables the DEC locator input model on a remote terminal

vimspell.sh

Spell checks a file and generates the syntax statements necessary to highlight in vim. This script requires the old Unix spell command, which is provided neither in CLFS nor in BLFS

vimtutor

Teaches the basic keys and commands of vim

xxd

Creates a hex dump of the given file; it can also do the reverse, so it can be used for binary patching

10.54. Aboot-0.9b

The aboot package contains the Alpha Bootloader.

10.54.1. Installation of aboot

The following patch addresses build issues with GCC 4.1.1:

patch -Np1 -i ../aboot-0.9b-kernel26_gcc4_fixes-4.patch

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

10.54.2. Contents of aboot

Installed programs: abootconf, e2writeboot, isomarkboot, swriteboot

Short Descriptions

abootconf

Sets the partition number that contains the configuration file for the secondary bootloader.

e2writeboot

Can be used to write a secondary bootstrap loader to an ext2 formatted filesystem (normally on a floppy disk).

isomarkboot

Makes an iso image bootable.

swriteboot

Used to write the secondary SRM bootloader to a harddisk.

10.55. About Debugging Symbols

Most programs and libraries are, by default, compiled with debugging symbols included (with gcc's -g option). This means that when debugging a program or library that was compiled with debugging information included, the debugger can provide not only memory addresses, but also the names of the routines and variables.

However, the inclusion of these debugging symbols enlarges a program or library significantly. The following is an example of the amount of space these symbols occupy:

  • a bash binary with debugging symbols: 1200 KB

  • a bash binary without debugging symbols: 480 KB

  • Glibc and GCC files (/lib and /usr/lib) with debugging symbols: 87 MB

  • Glibc and GCC files without debugging symbols: 16 MB

Sizes may vary depending on which compiler and C library were used, but when comparing programs with and without debugging symbols, the difference will usually be a factor between two and five.

Because most users will never use a debugger on their system software, a lot of disk space can be regained by removing these symbols. The next section shows how to strip all debugging symbols from the programs and libraries. Additional information on system optimization can be found at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/optimization.txt.

10.56. Stripping

If the intended user is not a programmer and does not plan to do any debugging on the system software, the system size can be decreased by about 200 MB by removing the debugging symbols from binaries and libraries. This causes no inconvenience other than not being able to debug the software fully anymore.

Most people who use the command mentioned below do not experience any difficulties. However, it is easy to make a typo and render the new system unusable, so before running the strip command, it is a good idea to make a backup of the current situation.

Before performing the stripping, take special care to ensure that none of the binaries that are about to be stripped are running. If unsure whether the user entered chroot with the command given in If You Are Going to Chroot first exit from chroot:

logout

Then reenter it with:

chroot ${CLFS} /tools/bin/env -i \
    HOME=/root TERM=${TERM} PS1='\u:\w\$ ' \
    PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin \
    /tools/bin/bash --login

Now the binaries and libraries can be safely stripped:

/tools/bin/find /{,usr/}{bin,lib,sbin} -type f \
   -exec /tools/bin/strip --strip-debug '{}' ';'

A large number of files will be reported as having their file format not recognized. These warnings can be safely ignored. These warnings indicate that those files are scripts instead of binaries.

If disk space is very tight, the --strip-all option can be used on the binaries in /{,usr/}{bin,sbin} to gain several more megabytes. Do not use this option on libraries—they will be destroyed.

Chapter 11. Setting Up System Bootscripts

11.1. Introduction

This chapter details how to install and configure the CLFS-Bootscripts package. Most of these scripts will work without modification, but a few require additional configuration files because they deal with hardware-dependent information.

System-V style init scripts are employed in this book because they are widely used. For additional options, a hint detailing the BSD style init setup is available at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/bsd-init.txt. Searching the LFS mailing lists for “depinit” will also offer additional choices.

If using an alternative style of init scripts, skip this chapter and move on to Making the CLFS System Bootable.

11.2. CLFS-Bootscripts-1.0

The CLFS-Bootscripts package contains a set of scripts to start/stop the CLFS system at bootup/shutdown.

11.2.1. Installation of CLFS-Bootscripts

Install the package:

make install

11.2.2. Contents of CLFS-Bootscripts

Installed scripts: checkfs, cleanfs, console, functions, halt, ifdown, ifup, localnet, mountfs, mountkernfs, network, rc, reboot, sendsignals, setclock, static, swap, sysklogd, and template.

Short Descriptions

checkfs

Checks the integrity of the file systems before they are mounted (with the exception of journal and network based file systems)

cleanfs

Removes files that should not be preserved between reboots, such as those in /var/run/ and /var/lock/; it re-creates /var/run/utmp and removes the possibly present /etc/nologin, /fastboot, and /forcefsck files

console

Loads the correct keymap table for the desired keyboard layout; it also sets the screen font

functions

Contains common functions, such as error and status checking, that are used by several bootscripts

halt

Halts the system

ifdown

Assists the network script with stopping network devices

ifup

Assists the network script with starting network devices

localnet

Sets up the system's hostname and local loopback device

mountfs

Mounts all file systems, except ones that are marked noauto or are network based

mountkernfs

Mounts virtual kernel file systems, such as proc

network

Sets up network interfaces, such as network cards, and sets up the default gateway (where applicable)

rc

The master run-level control script; it is responsible for running all the other bootscripts one-by-one, in a sequence determined by the name of the symbolic links being processed

reboot

Reboots the system

sendsignals

Makes sure every process is terminated before the system reboots or halts

setclock

Resets the kernel clock to local time in case the hardware clock is not set to UTC time

static

Provides the functionality needed to assign a static Internet Protocol (IP) address to a network interface

swap

Enables and disables swap files and partitions

sysklogd

Starts and stops the system and kernel log daemons

template

A template to create custom bootscripts for other daemons

11.3. Udev Rules-1.0-3

The Udev Cross-LFS rules package contains the necessary rules set for a basic functional system.

11.3.1. Installation of Udev-Rules

Install the package:

make install

11.3.2. Contents of Udev Rules

Installed Rules: 05-udev-early.rules, 35-helper.rules, 40-modprobe.rules, 50-udev.rules, 55-sound.rules, 60-persistent-disk.rules, 61-persistent-input.rules, 90-user.rules, 95-debug.rules, load_floppy_module.sh, show_event_log, udev, and udev_retry

Short Descriptions

05-udev-early.rules

Rules that are run early in the boot process. These rules check for the ability to do hotplug events connect to the network, and make sure that sysfs is ready before running any other rules.

35-helper.rules

Rules that use helper programs.

40-modprobe.rules

Rules that use modprobe to load kernel modules.

50-udev.rules

Creates basic system devices and permissions.

55-sound.rules

Gives proper permissions to audio device and restores sound volumes.

60-persistent-disk.rules

Allows persistent naming of disk drives.

61-persistent-input.rules

Allows persistent naming of input devices.

90-user.rules

Rules defined by the user.

95-debug.rules

Rules for debugging udev.

load_floppy_module.sh

Checks to see if a floppy drive exists before loading the floppy drive module into memory.

show_event_log

Displays Udev log messages from /var/log/messages.

udev

To be Written.

11.4. How Do These Bootscripts Work?

Linux uses a special booting facility named SysVinit that is based on a concept of run-levels. It can be quite different from one system to another, so it cannot be assumed that because things worked in one particular Linux distribution, they should work the same in CLFS too. CLFS has its own way of doing things, but it respects generally accepted standards.

SysVinit (which will be referred to as “init” from now on) works using a run-levels scheme. There are seven (numbered 0 to 6) run-levels (actually, there are more run-levels, but they are for special cases and are generally not used. See init(8) for more details), and each one of those corresponds to the actions the computer is supposed to perform when it starts up. The default run-level is 3. Here are the descriptions of the different run-levels as they are implemented:

0: halt the computer
1: single-user mode
2: multi-user mode without networking
3: multi-user mode with networking
4: reserved for customization, otherwise does the same as 3
5: same as 4, it is usually used for GUI login (like X's xdm or KDE's kdm)
6: reboot the computer

The command used to change run-levels is init [runlevel], where [runlevel] is the target run-level. For example, to reboot the computer, a user could issue the init 6 command, which is an alias for the reboot command. Likewise, init 0 is an alias for the halt command.

There are a number of directories under /etc/rc.d that look like rc?.d (where ? is the number of the run-level) and rcsysinit.d, all containing a number of symbolic links. Some begin with a K, the others begin with an S, and all of them have two numbers following the initial letter. The K means to stop (kill) a service and the S means to start a service. The numbers determine the order in which the scripts are run, from 00 to 99—the lower the number the earlier it gets executed. When init switches to another run-level, the appropriate services are either started or stopped, depending on the runlevel chosen.

The real scripts are in /etc/rc.d/init.d. They do the actual work, and the symlinks all point to them. Killing links and starting links point to the same script in /etc/rc.d/init.d. This is because the scripts can be called with different parameters like start, stop, restart, reload, and status. When a K link is encountered, the appropriate script is run with the stop argument. When an S link is encountered, the appropriate script is run with the start argument.

There is one exception to this explanation. Links that start with an S in the rc0.d and rc6.d directories will not cause anything to be started. They will be called with the parameter stop to stop something. The logic behind this is that when a user is going to reboot or halt the system, nothing needs to be started. The system only needs to be stopped.

These are descriptions of what the arguments make the scripts do:

start

The service is started.

stop

The service is stopped.

restart

The service is stopped and then started again.

reload

The configuration of the service is updated. This is used after the configuration file of a service was modified, when the service does not need to be restarted.

status

Tells if the service is running and with which PIDs.

Feel free to modify the way the boot process works (after all, it is your own CLFS system). The files given here are an example of how it can be done.

11.5. Device and Module Handling on a CLFS System

In Installing Basic System Software, we installed the Udev package. Before we go into the details regarding how this works, a brief history of previous methods of handling devices is in order.

Linux systems in general traditionally use a static device creation method, whereby a great many device nodes are created under /dev (sometimes literally thousands of nodes), regardless of whether the corresponding hardware devices actually exist. This is typically done via a MAKEDEV script, which contains a number of calls to the mknod program with the relevant major and minor device numbers for every possible device that might exist in the world.

Using the Udev method, only those devices which are detected by the kernel get device nodes created for them. Because these device nodes will be created each time the system boots, they will be stored on a tmpfs file system (a virtual file system that resides entirely in system memory). Device nodes do not require much space, so the memory that is used is negligible.

11.5.1. History

In February 2000, a new filesystem called devfs was merged into the 2.3.46 kernel and was made available during the 2.4 series of stable kernels. Although it was present in the kernel source itself, this method of creating devices dynamically never received overwhelming support from the core kernel developers.

The main problem with the approach adopted by devfs was the way it handled device detection, creation, and naming. The latter issue, that of device node naming, was perhaps the most critical. It is generally accepted that if device names are allowed to be configurable, then the device naming policy should be up to a system administrator, not imposed on them by any particular developer(s). The devfs file system also suffers from race conditions that are inherent in its design and cannot be fixed without a substantial revision to the kernel. It has also been marked as deprecated due to a lack of recent maintenance.

With the development of the unstable 2.5 kernel tree, later released as the 2.6 series of stable kernels, a new virtual filesystem called sysfs came to be. The job of sysfs is to export a view of the system's hardware configuration to userspace processes. With this userspace-visible representation, the possibility of seeing a userspace replacement for devfs became much more realistic.

11.5.2. Udev Implementation

11.5.2.1. Sysfs

The sysfs filesystem was mentioned briefly above. One may wonder how sysfs knows about the devices present on a system and what device numbers should be used for them. Drivers that have been compiled into the kernel directly register their objects with sysfs as they are detected by the kernel. For drivers compiled as modules, this registration will happen when the module is loaded. Once the sysfs filesystem is mounted (on /sys), data which the built-in drivers registered with sysfs are available to userspace processes and to udevd for device node creation.

11.5.2.2. Udev Bootscript

The S10udev initscript takes care of creating device nodes when Linux is booted. The script unsets the uevent handler from the default of /sbin/hotplug. This is done because the kernel no longer needs to call out to an external binary. Instead udevd will listen on a netlink socket for uevents that the kernel raises. Next, the bootscript copies any static device nodes that exist in /lib/udev/devices to /dev. This is necessary because some devices, directories, and symlinks are needed before the dynamic device handling processes are available during the early stages of booting a system. Creating static device nodes in /lib/udev/devices also provides an easy workaround for devices that are not supported by the dynamic device handling infrastructure. The bootscript then starts the Udev daemon, udevd, which will act on any uevents it receives. Finally, the bootscript forces the kernel to replay uevents for any devices that have already been registered and then waits for udevd to handle them.

11.5.2.3. Device Node Creation

To obtain the right major and minor number for a device, Udev relies on the information provided by sysfs in /sys. For example, /sys/class/tty/vcs/dev contains the string “7:0”. This string is used by udevd to create a device node with major number 7 and minor 0. The names and permissions of the nodes created under the /dev directory are determined by rules specified in the files within the /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory. These are numbered in a similar fashion to the CLFS-Bootscripts package. If udevd can't find a rule for the device it is creating, it will default permissions to 660 and ownership to root:root. Documentation on the syntax of the Udev rules configuration files are available in /usr/share/doc/udev-096/index.html

11.5.2.4. Module Loading

Device drivers compiled as modules may have aliases built into them. Aliases are visible in the output of the modinfo program and are usually related to the bus-specific identifiers of devices supported by a module. For example, the snd-fm801 driver supports PCI devices with vendor ID 0x1319 and device ID 0x0801, and has an alias of “pci:v00001319d00000801sv*sd*bc04sc01i*”. For most devices, the bus driver exports the alias of the driver that would handle the device via sysfs. E.g., the /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:0d.0/modalias file might contain the string “pci:v00001319d00000801sv00001319sd00001319bc04sc01i00”. The rules that CLFS installs will cause udevd to call out to /sbin/modprobe with the contents of the MODALIAS uevent environment variable (that should be the same as the contents of the modalias file in sysfs), thus loading all modules whose aliases match this string after wildcard expansion.

In this example, this means that, in addition to snd-fm801, the obsolete (and unwanted) forte driver will be loaded if it is available. See below for ways in which the loading of unwanted drivers can be prevented.

The kernel itself is also able to load modules for network protocols, filesystems and NLS support on demand.

11.5.2.5. Handling Hotpluggable/Dynamic Devices

When you plug in a device, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) MP3 player, the kernel recognizes that the device is now connected and generates a uevent. This uevent is then handled by udevd as described above.

11.5.3. Problems with Loading Modules and Creating Devices

There are a few possible problems when it comes to automatically creating device nodes.

11.5.3.1. A kernel module is not loaded automatically

Udev will only load a module if it has a bus-specific alias and the bus driver properly exports the necessary aliases to sysfs. In other cases, one should arrange module loading by other means. With Linux-2.6.17.13, Udev is known to load properly-written drivers for INPUT, IDE, PCI, USB, SCSI, SERIO and FireWire devices.

To determine if the device driver you require has the necessary support for Udev, run modinfo with the module name as the argument. Now try locating the device directory under /sys/bus and check whether there is a modalias file there.

If the modalias file exists in sysfs, the driver supports the device and can talk to it directly, but doesn't have the alias, it is a bug in the driver. Load the driver without the help from Udev and expect the issue to be fixed later.

If there is no modalias file in the relevant directory under /sys/bus, this means that the kernel developers have not yet added modalias support to this bus type. With Linux-2.6.17.13, this is the case with ISA busses. Expect this issue to be fixed in later kernel versions.

Udev is not intended to load “wrapper” drivers such as snd-pcm-oss and non-hardware drivers such as loop at all.

11.5.3.2. A kernel module is not loaded automatically, and Udev is not intended to load it

If the “wrapper” module only enhances the functionality provided by some other module (e.g., snd-pcm-oss enhances the functionality of snd-pcm by making the sound cards available to OSS applications), configure modprobe to load the wrapper after Udev loads the wrapped module. To do this, add an “install” line in /etc/modprobe.conf. For example:

install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe -i snd-pcm ; \
    /sbin/modprobe snd-pcm-oss ; true

If the module in question is not a wrapper and is useful by itself, configure the S05modules bootscript to load this module on system boot. To do this, add the module name to the /etc/sysconfig/modules file on a separate line. This works for wrapper modules too, but is suboptimal in that case.

11.5.3.3. Udev loads some unwanted module

Either don't build the module, or blacklist it in /etc/modprobe.conf file as done with the forte module in the example below:

blacklist forte

Blacklisted modules can still be loaded manually with the explicit modprobe command.

11.5.3.4. Udev creates a device incorrectly, or makes a wrong symlink

This usually happens if a rule unexpectedly matches a device. For example, a poorly-writen rule can match both a SCSI disk (as desired) and the corresponding SCSI generic device (incorrectly) by vendor. Find the offending rule and make it more specific.

11.5.3.5. Udev rule works unreliably

This may be another manifestation of the previous problem. If not, and your rule uses sysfs attributes, it may be a kernel timing issue, to be fixed in later kernels. For now, you can work around it by creating a rule that waits for the used sysfs attribute and appending it to the /etc/udev/rules.d/10-wait_for_sysfs.rules file. Please notify the CLFS Development list if you do so and it helps.

11.5.3.6. Udev does not create a device

Further text assumes that the driver is built statically into the kernel or already loaded as a module, and that you have already checked that Udev doesn't create a misnamed device.

Udev has no information needed to create a device node if a kernel driver does not export its data to sysfs. This is most common with third party drivers from outside the kernel tree. Create a static device node in /lib/udev/devices with the appropriate major/minor numbers (see the file devices.txt inside the kernel documentation or the documentation provided by the third party driver vendor). The static device node will be copied to /dev by the S10udev bootscript.

11.5.3.7. Device naming order changes randomly after rebooting

This is due to the fact that Udev, by design, handles uevents and loads modules in parallel, and thus in an unpredictable order. This will never be “fixed”. You should not rely upon the kernel device names being stable. Instead, create your own rules that make symlinks with stable names based on some stable attributes of the device, such as a serial number or the output of various *_id utilities installed by Udev. See Section 11.13, “Creating custom symlinks to devices” and Section 11.14, “Configuring the network Script” for examples.

11.5.4. Useful Reading

Additional helpful documentation is available at the following sites:

11.6. Configuring the setclock Script

The setclock script reads the time from the hardware clock, also known as the BIOS or the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) clock. If the hardware clock is set to UTC, this script will convert the hardware clock's time to the local time using the /etc/localtime file (which tells the hwclock program which timezone the user is in). There is no way to detect whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC, so this needs to be configured manually.

If you cannot remember whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC, find out by running the hwclock --localtime --show command. This will display what the current time is according to the hardware clock. If this time matches whatever your watch says, then the hardware clock is set to local time. If the output from hwclock is not local time, chances are it is set to UTC time. Verify this by adding or subtracting the proper amount of hours for the timezone to the time shown by hwclock. For example, if you are currently in the MST timezone, which is also known as GMT -0700, add seven hours to the local time.

Change the value of the UTC variable below to a value of 0 (zero) if the hardware clock is not set to UTC time.

Create a new file /etc/sysconfig/clock by running the following:

cat > /etc/sysconfig/clock << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/sysconfig/clock

UTC=1

# End /etc/sysconfig/clock
EOF

A good hint explaining how to deal with time on CLFS is available at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/time.txt. It explains issues such as time zones, UTC, and the TZ environment variable.

11.7. Configuring the Linux Console

This section discusses how to configure the console bootscript that sets up the keyboard map and the console font. If non-ASCII characters (e.g., the British pound sign and Euro character) will not be used and the keyboard is a U.S. one, skip this section. Without the configuration file, the console bootscript will do nothing.

The console script reads the /etc/sysconfig/console file for configuration information. Decide which keymap and screen font will be used. Various language-specific HOWTO's can also help with this (see http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/other-lang.html. A pre-made /etc/sysconfig/console file with known settings for several countries was installed with the CLFS-Bootscripts package, so the relevant section can be uncommented if the country is supported. If still in doubt, look in the /usr/share/kbd directory for valid keymaps and screen fonts. Read loadkeys(1) and setfont(8) to determine the correct arguments for these programs. Once decided, create the configuration file with the following command:

cat >/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF"
KEYMAP="[arguments for loadkeys]"
FONT="[arguments for setfont]"
EOF

For example, for Spanish users who also want to use the Euro character (accessible by pressing AltGr+E), the following settings are correct:

cat >/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF"
KEYMAP="es euro2"
FONT="lat9-16 -u iso01"
EOF

Note

The FONT line above is correct only for the ISO 8859-15 character set. If using ISO 8859-1 and, therefore, a pound sign instead of Euro, the correct FONT line would be:

FONT="lat1-16"

If the KEYMAP or FONT variable is not set, the console initscript will not run the corresponding program.

In some keymaps, the Backspace and Delete keys send characters different from ones in the default keymap built into the kernel. This confuses some applications. For example, Emacs displays its help (instead of erasing the character before the cursor) when Backspace is pressed. To check if the keymap in use is affected (this works only for i386 keymaps):

zgrep '\W14\W' [/path/to/your/keymap]

If the keycode 14 is Backspace instead of Delete, create the following keymap snippet to fix this issue:

mkdir -pv /etc/kbd && cat > /etc/kbd/bs-sends-del <<"EOF"
                  keycode  14 = Delete Delete Delete Delete
              alt keycode  14 = Meta_Delete
        altgr alt keycode  14 = Meta_Delete
                  keycode 111 = Remove
    altgr control keycode 111 = Boot
      control alt keycode 111 = Boot
altgr control alt keycode 111 = Boot
EOF

Tell the console script to load this snippet after the main keymap:

cat >>/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF"
KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del"
EOF

To compile the keymap directly into the kernel instead of setting it every time from the console bootscript, follow the instructions given in Section 12.3, “Linux-2.6.17.13.” Doing this ensures that the keyboard will always work as expected, even when booting into maintenance mode (by passing init=/bin/sh to the kernel), because the console bootscript will not be run in that situation. Additionally, the kernel will not set the screen font automatically. This should not pose many problems because ASCII characters will be handled correctly, and it is unlikely that a user would need to rely on non-ASCII characters while in maintenance mode.

Since the kernel will set up the keymap, it is possible to omit the KEYMAP variable from the /etc/sysconfig/console configuration file. It can also be left in place, if desired, without consequence. Keeping it could be beneficial if running several different kernels where it is difficult to ensure that the keymap is compiled into every one of them.

11.8. Configuring the sysklogd script

The sysklogd script invokes the syslogd program with the -m 0 option. This option turns off the periodic timestamp mark that syslogd writes to the log files every 20 minutes by default. If you want to turn on this periodic timestamp mark, edit the sysklogd script and make the changes accordingly. See man syslogd for more information.

11.9. Creating the /etc/inputrc File

The /etc/inputrc file deals with mapping the keyboard for specific situations. This file is the start-up file used by Readline — the input-related library — used by Bash and most other shells.

Most people do not need user-specific keyboard mappings so the command below creates a global /etc/inputrc used by everyone who logs in. If you later decide you need to override the defaults on a per-user basis, you can create a .inputrc file in the user's home directory with the modified mappings.

For more information on how to edit the inputrc file, see info bash under the Readline Init File section. info readline is also a good source of information.

Below is a generic global inputrc along with comments to explain what the various options do. Note that comments cannot be on the same line as commands. Create the file using the following command:

cat > /etc/inputrc << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/inputrc
# Modified by Chris Lynn <roryo@roryo.dynup.net>

# Allow the command prompt to wrap to the next line
set horizontal-scroll-mode Off

# Enable 8bit input
set meta-flag On
set input-meta On

# Turns off 8th bit stripping
set convert-meta Off

# Keep the 8th bit for display
set output-meta On

# none, visible or audible
set bell-style none

# All of the following map the escape sequence of the
# value contained inside the 1st argument to the
# readline specific functions

"\eOd": backward-word
"\eOc": forward-word

# for linux console
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line
"\e[5~": beginning-of-history
"\e[6~": end-of-history
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[2~": quoted-insert

# for xterm
"\eOH": beginning-of-line
"\eOF": end-of-line

# for Konsole
"\e[H": beginning-of-line
"\e[F": end-of-line

# End /etc/inputrc
EOF

11.10. The Bash Shell Startup Files

The shell program /bin/bash (hereafter referred to as “the shell”) uses a collection of startup files to help create an environment to run in. Each file has a specific use and may affect login and interactive environments differently. The files in the /etc directory provide global settings. If an equivalent file exists in the home directory, it may override the global settings.

An interactive login shell is started after a successful login, using /bin/login, by reading the /etc/passwd file. An interactive non-login shell is started at the command-line (e.g., [prompt]$/bin/bash). A non-interactive shell is usually present when a shell script is running. It is non-interactive because it is processing a script and not waiting for user input between commands.

For more information, see info bash under the Bash Startup Files and Interactive Shells section.

The files /etc/profile and ~/.bash_profile are read when the shell is invoked as an interactive login shell.

The base /etc/profile below sets some environment variables necessary for native language support. Setting them properly results in:

  • The output of programs translated into the native language

  • Correct classification of characters into letters, digits and other classes. This is necessary for bash to properly accept non-ASCII characters in command lines in non-English locales

  • The correct alphabetical sorting order for the country

  • Appropriate default paper size

  • Correct formatting of monetary, time, and date values

This script also sets the INPUTRC environment variable that makes Bash and Readline use the /etc/inputrc file created earlier.

Replace [ll] below with the two-letter code for the desired language (e.g., “en”) and [CC] with the two-letter code for the appropriate country (e.g., “GB”). [charmap] should be replaced with the canonical charmap for your chosen locale.

The list of all locales supported by Glibc can be obtained by running the following command:

locale -a

Locales can have a number of synonyms, e.g. “ISO-8859-1” is also referred to as “iso8859-1” and “iso88591”. Some applications cannot handle the various synonyms correctly, so it is safest to choose the canonical name for a particular locale. To determine the canonical name, run the following command, where [locale name] is the output given by locale -a for your preferred locale (“en_GB.iso88591” in our example).

LC_ALL=[locale name] locale charmap

For the “en_GB.iso88591” locale, the above command will print:

ISO-8859-1

This results in a final locale setting of “en_GB.ISO-8859-1”. It is important that the locale found using the heuristic above is tested prior to it being added to the Bash startup files:

LC_ALL=[locale name] locale country
LC_ALL=[locale name] locale language
LC_ALL=[locale name] locale charmap
LC_ALL=[locale name] locale int_curr_symbol
LC_ALL=[locale name] locale int_prefix

The above commands should print the language name, the character encoding used by the locale, the local currency, and the prefix to dial before the telephone number in order to get into the country. If any of the commands above fail with a message similar to the one shown below, this means that your locale was either not installed in Chapter 10 or is not supported by the default installation of Glibc.

locale: Cannot set LC_* to default locale: No such file or directory

If this happens, you should either install the desired locale using the localedef command, or consider choosing a different locale. Further instructions assume that there are no such error messages from Glibc.

Some packages beyond CLFS may also lack support for your chosen locale. One example is the X library (part of the X Window System), which outputs the following error message:

Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C

Sometimes it is possible to fix this by removing the charmap part of the locale specification, as long as that does not change the character map that Glibc associates with the locale (this can be checked by running the locale charmap command in both locales). For example, one would have to change "de_DE.ISO-8859-15@euro" to "de_DE@euro" in order to get this locale recognized by Xlib.

Other packages can also function incorrectly (but may not necessarily display any error messages) if the locale name does not meet their expectations. In those cases, investigating how other Linux distributions support your locale might provide some useful information.

Once the proper locale settings have been determined, create the /etc/profile file:

cat > /etc/profile << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/profile

export LANG=[ll]_[CC].[charmap]
export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc

# End /etc/profile
EOF

Note

The “C” (default) and “en_US” (the recommended one for United States English users) locales are different.

Setting the keyboard layout, screen font, and locale-related environment variables are the only internationalization steps needed to support locales that use ordinary single-byte encodings and left-to-right writing direction. More complex cases (including UTF-8 based locales) require additional steps and additional patches because many applications tend to not work properly under such conditions. These steps and patches are not included in the CLFS book and such locales are not yet supported by CLFS.

11.11. Configuring the localnet Script

Part of the job of the localnet script is setting the system's hostname. This needs to be configured in the /etc/sysconfig/network file.

Create the /etc/sysconfig/network file and enter a hostname by running:

echo "HOSTNAME=[clfs]" > /etc/sysconfig/network

[clfs] needs to be replaced with the name given to the computer. Do not enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) here. That information will be put in the /etc/hosts file in the next section.

11.12. Customizing the /etc/hosts File

If a network card is to be configured, decide on the IP address, FQDN, and possible aliases for use in the /etc/hosts file. The syntax is:

<IP address> myhost.example.org aliases

Unless the computer is to be visible to the Internet (i.e., there is a registered domain and a valid block of assigned IP addresses—most users do not have this), make sure that the IP address is in the private network IP address range. Valid ranges are:

  Class Networks
  A     10.0.0.0
  B     172.16.0.0 through 172.31.0.255
  C     192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

A valid IP address could be 192.168.1.1. A valid FQDN for this IP could be www.linuxfromscratch.org (not recommended because this is a valid registered domain address and could cause domain name server issues).

Even if not using a network card, an FQDN is still required. This is necessary for certain programs to operate correctly.

Create the /etc/hosts file by running:

cat > /etc/hosts << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/hosts (network card version)

127.0.0.1 localhost
[192.168.1.1] [<HOSTNAME>.example.org] [HOSTNAME]

# End /etc/hosts (network card version)
EOF

The [192.168.1.1] and [<HOSTNAME>.example.org] values need to be changed for specific users or requirements (if assigned an IP address by a network/system administrator and the machine will be connected to an existing network).

If a network card is not going to be configured, create the /etc/hosts file by running:

cat > /etc/hosts << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/hosts (no network card version)

127.0.0.1 [<HOSTNAME>.example.org] [HOSTNAME] localhost

# End /etc/hosts (no network card version)
EOF

11.13. Creating custom symlinks to devices

11.13.1. CD-ROM symlinks

Some software that you may want to install later (e.g., various media players) expect the /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd symlinks to exist. Also, it may be convenient to put references to those symlinks into /etc/fstab. For each of your CD-ROM devices, find the corresponding directory under /sys (e.g., this can be /sys/block/hdd) and run a command similar to the following:

udevtest /block/hdd

Look at the lines containing the output of various *_id programs.

There are two approaches to creating symlinks. The first one is to use the model name and the serial number, the second one is based on the location of the device on the bus. If you are going to use the first approach, create a file similar to the following:

cat >/etc/udev/rules.d/82-cdrom.rules << EOF

# Custom CD-ROM symlinks
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="SAMSUNG_CD-ROM_SC-148F", \
    ENV{ID_REVISION}=="PS05", SYMLINK+="cdrom"
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="PHILIPS_CDD5301", \
    ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="5VO1306DM00190", SYMLINK+="cdrom1 dvd"

EOF

Note

Although the examples in this book work properly, be aware that Udev does not recognize the backslash for line continuation. If modifying Udev rules with an editor, be sure to leave each rule on one physical line.

This way, the symlinks will stay correct even if you move the drives to different positions on the IDE bus, but the /dev/cdrom symlink won't be created if you replace the old SAMSUNG CD-ROM with a new drive.

The SUBSYSTEM=="block" key is needed in order to avoid matching SCSI generic devices. Without it, in the case with SCSI CD-ROMs, the symlinks will sometimes point to the correct /dev/srX devices, and sometimes to /dev/sgX, which is wrong.

The second approach yields:

cat >/etc/udev/rules.d/82-cdrom.rules << EOF

# Custom CD-ROM symlinks
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{ID_TYPE}=="cd", \
    ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:07.1-ide-0:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom"
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{ID_TYPE}=="cd", \
    ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:07.1-ide-1:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom1 dvd"

EOF

This way, the symlinks will stay correct even if you replace drives with different models, but place them to the old positions on the IDE bus. The ENV{ID_TYPE}=="cd" key makes sure that the symlink disappears if you put something other than a CD-ROM in that position on the bus.

Of course, it is possible to mix the two approaches.

11.13.2. Dealing with duplicate devices

As explained in Section 11.5, “Device and Module Handling on a CLFS System”, the order in which devices with the same function appear in /dev is essentially random. E.g., if you have a USB web camera and a TV tuner, sometimes /dev/video0 refers to the camera and /dev/video1 refers to the tuner, and sometimes after a reboot the order changes to the opposite one. For all classes of hardware except sound cards and network cards, this is fixable by creating udev rules for custom persistent symlinks. The case of network cards is covered separately in Section 11.14, “Configuring the network Script”, and sound card configuration can be found in BLFS.

For each of your devices that is likely to have this problem (even if the problem doesn't exist in your current Linux distribution), find the corresponding directory under /sys/class or /sys/block. For video devices, this may be /sys/class/video4linux/videoX. Figure out the attributes that identify the device uniquely (usually, vendor and product IDs and/or serial numbers work):

udevinfo -a -p /sys/class/video4linux/video0

Then write rules that create the symlinks, e.g.:

cat >/etc/udev/rules.d/83-duplicate_devs.rules << EOF

# Persistent symlinks for webcam and tuner
KERNEL=="video*", SYSFS{idProduct}=="1910", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0d81", \
    SYMLINK+="webcam"
KERNEL=="video*", SYSFS{device}=="0x036f", SYSFS{vendor}=="0x109e", \
    SYMLINK+="tvtuner"

EOF

The result is that /dev/video0 and /dev/video1 devices still refer randomly to the tuner and the web camera (and thus should never be used directly), but there are symlinks /dev/tvtuner and /dev/webcam that always point to the correct device.

More information on writing Udev rules can be found in /usr/share/doc/udev-096/index.html.

11.14. Configuring the network Script

This section only applies if a network card is to be configured.

If a network card will not be used, there is likely no need to create any configuration files relating to network cards. If that is the case, remove the network symlinks from all run-level directories (/etc/rc.d/rc*.d).

11.14.1. Creating stable names for network interfaces

Instructions in this section are optional if you have only one network card.

With Udev and modular network drivers, the network interface numbering is not persistent across reboots by default, because the drivers are loaded in parallel and, thus, in random order. For example, on a computer having two network cards made by Intel and Realtek, the network card manufactured by Intel may become eth0 and the Realtek card becomes eth1. In some cases, after a reboot the cards get renumbered the other way around. To avoid this, create Udev rules that assign stable names to network cards based on their MAC addresses or bus positions.

If you are going to use MAC addresses to identify your network cards, find the addresses with the following command:

grep -H . /sys/class/net/*/address

For each network card (but not for the loopback interface), invent a descriptive name, such as “realtek”, and create Udev rules similar to the following:

cat > /etc/udev/rules.d/26-network.rules << EOF
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", SYSFS{address}=="00:e0:4c:12:34:56", \
    NAME="realtek"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", SYSFS{address}=="00:a0:c9:78:9a:bc", \
    NAME="intel"
EOF

Note

Although the examples in this book work properly, be aware that Udev does not recognize the backslash for line continuation. If modifying Udev rules with an editor, be sure to leave each rule on one physical line.

If you are going to use the bus position as a key, create Udev rules similar to the following:

cat > /etc/udev/rules.d/26-network.rules << EOF
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", ID=="0000:00:0c.0", \
    NAME="realtek"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", ID=="0000:00:0d.0", \
    NAME="intel"
EOF

These rules will always rename the network cards to “realtek” and “intel”, independently of the original numbering provided by the kernel (i.e.: the original “eth0” and “eth1” interfaces will no longer exist, unless you put such “descriptive” names in the NAME key). Use the descriptive names from the Udev rules instead of “eth0” in the network interface configuration files below.

Note that the rules above don't work for every setup. For example, MAC-based rules break when bridges or VLANs are used, because bridges and VLANs have the same MAC address as the network card. One wants to rename only the network card interface, not the bridge or VLAN interface, but the example rule matches both. If you use such virtual interfaces, you have two potential solutions. One is to add the DRIVER=="?*" key after SUBSYSTEM=="net" in MAC-based rules which will stop matching the virtual interfaces. This is known to fail with some older Ethernet cards because they don't have the DRIVER variable in the uevent and thus the rule does not match with such cards. Another solution is to switch to rules that use the bus position as a key.

The second known non-working case is with wireless cards using the MadWifi or HostAP drivers, because they create at least two interfaces with the same MAC address and bus position. For example, the Madwifi driver creates both an athX and a wifiX interface where X is a digit. To differentiate these interfaces, add an appropriate KERNEL parameter such as KERNEL=="ath*" after SUBSYSTEM=="net".

There may be other cases where the rules above don't work. Currently, bugs on this topic are still being reported to Linux distributions, and no solution that covers every case is available.

11.14.2. Creating Network Interface Configuration Files

Which interfaces are brought up and down by the network script depends on the files and directories in the /etc/sysconfig/network-devices hierarchy. This directory should contain a sub-directory for each interface to be configured, such as ifconfig.xyz, where “xyz” is a network interface name. Inside this directory would be files defining the attributes to this interface, such as its IP address(es), subnet masks, and so forth.

The following command creates a sample ipv4 file for the eth0 device:

cd /etc/sysconfig/network-devices &&
mkdir -v ifconfig.eth0 &&
cat > ifconfig.eth0/ipv4 << "EOF"
ONBOOT=yes
SERVICE=ipv4-static
IP=192.168.1.1
GATEWAY=192.168.1.2
PREFIX=24
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
EOF

The values of these variables must be changed in every file to match the proper setup. If the ONBOOT variable is set to “yes” the network script will bring up the Network Interface Card (NIC) during booting of the system. If set to anything but “yes” the NIC will be ignored by the network script and not be brought up.

The SERVICE variable defines the method used for obtaining the IP address. The CLFS-Bootscripts package has a modular IP assignment format, and creating additional files in the /etc/sysconfig/network-devices/services directory allows other IP assignment methods. This is commonly used for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), which is addressed in the BLFS book.

The GATEWAY variable should contain the default gateway IP address, if one is present. If not, then comment out the variable entirely.

The PREFIX variable needs to contain the number of bits used in the subnet. Each octet in an IP address is 8 bits. If the subnet's netmask is 255.255.255.0, then it is using the first three octets (24 bits) to specify the network number. If the netmask is 255.255.255.240, it would be using the first 28 bits. Prefixes longer than 24 bits are commonly used by DSL and cable-based Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In this example (PREFIX=24), the netmask is 255.255.255.0. Adjust the PREFIX variable according to your specific subnet.

11.14.3. Creating the /etc/resolv.conf File

If the system is going to be connected to the Internet, it will need some means of Domain Name Service (DNS) name resolution to resolve Internet domain names to IP addresses, and vice versa. This is best achieved by placing the IP address of the DNS server, available from the ISP or network administrator, into /etc/resolv.conf. Create the file by running the following:

cat > /etc/resolv.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/resolv.conf

domain [Your Domain Name]
nameserver [IP address of your primary nameserver]
nameserver [IP address of your secondary nameserver]

# End /etc/resolv.conf
EOF

Replace [IP address of the nameserver] with the IP address of the DNS most appropriate for the setup. There will often be more than one entry (requirements demand secondary servers for fallback capability). If you only need or want one DNS server, remove the second nameserver line from the file. The IP address may also be a router on the local network.

Chapter 12. Making the CLFS System Bootable

12.1. Introduction

It is time to make the CLFS system bootable. This chapter discusses creating an fstab file, building a kernel for the new CLFS system, and installing the boot loader so that the CLFS system can be selected for booting at startup.

12.2. Creating the /etc/fstab File

The /etc/fstab file is used by some programs to determine where file systems are to be mounted by default, in which order, and which must be checked (for integrity errors) prior to mounting. Create a new file systems table like this:

cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point  type   options          dump  fsck
#                                                         order

/dev/[xxx]     /            [fff]  defaults         1     1
/dev/[yyy]     swap         swap   pri=1            0     0
proc           /proc        proc   defaults         0     0
sysfs          /sys         sysfs  defaults         0     0
devpts         /dev/pts     devpts gid=10,mode=620  0     0
shm            /dev/shm     tmpfs  defaults         0     0
# End /etc/fstab
EOF

Replace [xxx], [yyy], and [fff] with the values appropriate for the system, for example, hda2, hda5, and ext2. For details on the six fields in this file, see man 5 fstab.

The /dev/shm mount point for tmpfs is included to allow enabling POSIX-shared memory. The kernel must have the required support built into it for this to work (more about this is in the next section). Please note that very little software currently uses POSIX-shared memory. Therefore, consider the /dev/shm mount point optional. For more information, see Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt in the kernel source tree.

12.3. Linux-2.6.17.13

The Linux package contains the Linux kernel.

12.3.1. Installation of the kernel

Building the kernel involves a few steps—configuration, compilation, and installation. Read the README file in the kernel source tree for alternative methods to the way this book configures the kernel.

The following patch fixes on intialization issue with the tulip network driver:

patch -Np1 -i ../linux-2.6.17.13-tulip-1.patch

The following patch fixes some inline assembler in the kernel:

patch -Np1 -i ../linux-2.6.17.13-alpha_io_fix-1.patch

Prepare for compilation by running the following command:

make mrproper

This ensures that the kernel tree is absolutely clean. The kernel team recommends that this command be issued prior to each kernel compilation. Do not rely on the source tree being clean after un-tarring.

If, in Section 11.7, “Configuring the Linux Console,” it was decided to compile the keymap into the kernel, issue the command below:

loadkeys -m /lib/kbd/keymaps/[path to  keymap] > \
    drivers/char/defkeymap.c

For example, if using a Dutch keyboard, use /lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/nl.map.gz.

Configure the kernel via a menu-driven interface. Please note that the udev bootscript requires "rtc" and "tmpfs" to be enabled and built into the kernel, not as modules. BLFS has some information regarding particular kernel configuration requirements of packages outside of CLFS at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/longindex.html#kernel-config-index:

make menuconfig

Alternatively, make oldconfig may be more appropriate in some situations. See the README file for more information.

If desired, skip kernel configuration by copying the kernel config file, .config, from the host system (assuming it is available) to the root directory of the unpacked kernel sources. However, we do not recommend this option. It is often better to explore all the configuration menus and create the kernel configuration from scratch.

Compile the kernel image and modules:

make

If using kernel modules, an /etc/modprobe.conf file may be needed. Information pertaining to modules and kernel configuration is located in the kernel documentation in the Documentation directory of the kernel sources tree. Also, modprobe.conf(5) may be of interest.

Be very careful when reading other documentation relating to kernel modules because it usually applies to 2.4.x kernels only. As far as we know, kernel configuration issues specific to Hotplug and Udev are not documented. The problem is that Udev will create a device node only if Hotplug or a user-written script inserts the corresponding module into the kernel, and not all modules are detectable by Hotplug. Note that statements like the one below in the /etc/modprobe.conf file do not work with Udev:

alias char-major-XXX some-module

Because of the complications with Udev and modules, we strongly recommend starting with a completely non-modular kernel configuration, especially if this is the first time using Udev.

Install the modules, if the kernel configuration uses them:

make modules_install

After kernel compilation is complete, additional steps are required to complete the installation. Some files need to be copied to the /boot directory.

Issue the following command to install the kernel:

cp vmlinux /boot/clfskernel-2.6.17.13

System.map is a symbol file for the kernel. It maps the function entry points of every function in the kernel API, as well as the addresses of the kernel data structures for the running kernel. Issue the following command to install the map file:

cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.17.13

The kernel configuration file .config produced by the make menuconfig step above contains all the configuration selections for the kernel that was just compiled. It is a good idea to keep this file for future reference:

cp .config /boot/config-2.6.17.13

It is important to note that the files in the kernel source directory are not owned by root. Whenever a package is unpacked as user root (like we did inside chroot), the files have the user and group IDs of whatever they were on the packager's computer. This is usually not a problem for any other package to be installed because the source tree is removed after the installation. However, the Linux source tree is often retained for a long time. Because of this, there is a chance that whatever user ID the packager used will be assigned to somebody on the machine. That person would then have write access to the kernel source.

If the kernel source tree is going to retained, run chown -R 0:0 on the linux-2.6.17.13 directory to ensure all files are owned by user root.

Warning

Some kernel documentation recommends creating a symlink from /usr/src/linux pointing to the kernel source directory. This is specific to kernels prior to the 2.6 series and must not be created on a CLFS system as it can cause problems for packages you may wish to build once your base CLFS system is complete.

Also, the headers in the system's include directory should always be the ones against which Glibc was compiled (from the Linux-Headers package) and should never be replaced by the kernel headers.

12.3.2. Contents of Linux

Installed files: config-[linux-version], clfskernel-[linux-version], and System.map-[linux-version]

Short Descriptions

config-[linux-version]

Contains all the configuration selections for the kernel

clfskernel-[linux-version]

The engine of the Linux system. When turning on the computer, the kernel is the first part of the operating system that gets loaded. It detects and initializes all components of the computer's hardware, then makes these components available as a tree of files to the software and turns a single CPU into a multitasking machine capable of running scores of programs seemingly at the same time.

System.map-[linux-version]

A list of addresses and symbols; it maps the entry points and addresses of all the functions and data structures in the kernel

12.4. Making the CLFS System Bootable

Create a aboot.conf file defining aboot's boot menu:

cat > /etc/aboot.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/aboot.conf
0:1/boot/clfskernel-2.6.17.13 root=/dev/sda1
# End /etc/aboot.conf
EOF

Now to make aboot bootable:

swriteboot -f3 /dev/sda /boot/bootlx
abootconf /dev/sda 1

Chapter 13. The End

13.1. The End

Well done! The new CLFS system is installed! We wish you much success with your shiny new custom-built Linux system.

It may be a good idea to create an /etc/clfs-release file. By having this file, it is very easy for you (and for us if you need to ask for help at some point) to find out which CLFS version is installed on the system. Create this file by running:

echo 1.0.0 > /etc/clfs-release

13.2. Get Counted

Now that you have finished the book, do you want to be counted as a CLFS user? Head over to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/cgi-bin/lfscounter.cgi and register as a CLFS user by entering your name and the first CLFS version you have used.

13.3. Rebooting the System

If you built your final system using the boot method, just run shutdown -r now to reboot again, using your newly-built kernel instead of the miminal one currently in use. If you chrooted, there are a few more steps.

The system you have created in this book is quite minimal, and most likely will not have the functionality you would need to be able to continue forward. By installing a few extra packages from the BLFS book while still in our current chroot environment, you can leave yourself in a much better position to continue on once you reboot into your new CLFS installation. Installing a text mode web browser, such as Lynx, you can easily view the BLFS book in one virtual terminal, while building packages in another. The GPM package will also allow you to perform copy/paste actions in your virtual terminals. Lastly, if you are in a situation where static IP configuration does not meet your networking requirements, installing packages such as Dhcpcd or PPP at this point might also be useful.

Now that we have said that, lets move on to booting our shiny new CLFS installation for the first time! First exit from the chroot environment:

logout

Then unmount the virtual file systems:

umount ${CLFS}/dev/pts
umount ${CLFS}/dev/shm
umount ${CLFS}/dev
umount ${CLFS}/proc
umount ${CLFS}/sys

Unmount the CLFS file system itself:

umount ${CLFS}

If multiple partitions were created, unmount the other partitions before unmounting the main one, like this:

umount ${CLFS}/usr
umount ${CLFS}/home
umount ${CLFS}

Now, reboot the system with:

shutdown -r now

Assuming the boot loader was set up as outlined earlier, CLFS 1.0.0 will boot automatically.

When the reboot is complete, the CLFS system is ready for use and more software may be added to suit your needs.

13.4. What Now?

Thank you for reading this CLFS book. We hope that you have found this book helpful and have learned more about the system creation process.

Now that the CLFS system is installed, you may be wondering “What next?” To answer that question, we have compiled a list of resources for you.

  • Maintenance

    Bugs and security notices are reported regularly for all software. Since a CLFS system is compiled from source, it is up to you to keep abreast of such reports. There are several online resources that track such reports, some of which are shown below:

    • Freshmeat.net (http://freshmeat.net/)

      Freshmeat can notify you (via email) of new versions of packages installed on your system.

    • CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team)

      CERT has a mailing list that publishes security alerts concerning various operating systems and applications. Subscription information is available at http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/signup.html.

    • Bugtraq

      Bugtraq is a full-disclosure computer security mailing list. It publishes newly discovered security issues, and occasionally potential fixes for them. Subscription information is available at http://www.securityfocus.com/archive.

  • Beyond Linux From Scratch

    The Beyond Linux From Scratch book covers installation procedures for a wide range of software beyond the scope of the CLFS Book. The BLFS project is located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/.

  • LFS Hints

    The LFS Hints are a collection of educational documents submitted by volunteers in the LFS community. The hints are available at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/list.html.

  • Mailing lists

    There are several CLFS mailing lists you may subscribe to if you are in need of help, want to stay current with the latest developments, want to contribute to the project, and more. See Chapter 1 - Mailing Lists for more information.

  • The Linux Documentation Project

    The goal of The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is to collaborate on all of the issues of Linux documentation. The TLDP features a large collection of HOWTOs, guides, and man pages. It is located at http://www.tldp.org/.

Part VI. Appendices

Appendix A. Acronyms and Terms

ABI

Application Binary Interface

ALFS

Automated Linux From Scratch

ALSA

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture

API

Application Programming Interface

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ATA

Advanced Technology Attachment (see IDE)

BIOS

Basic Input/Output System

bless

manipulate a filesystem so that OF will boot from it

BLFS

Beyond Linux From Scratch

BSD

Berkeley Software Distribution

chroot

change root

CLFS

Cross-Compiled Linux From Scratch

CMOS

Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor

COS

Class Of Service

CPU

Central Processing Unit

CRC

Cyclic Redundancy Check

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DNS

Domain Name Service

EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adapter

ELF

Executable and Linkable Format

EOF

End of File

EQN

equation

EVMS

Enterprise Volume Management System

ext2

second extended file system

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FHS

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

FIFO

First-In, First Out

FQDN

Fully Qualified Domain Name

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

GB

Gibabytes

GCC

GNU Compiler Collection

GID

Group Identifier

GMT

Greenwich Mean Time

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

IDE

Integrated Drive Electronics

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

IO

Input/Output

IP

Internet Protocol

IPC

Inter-Process Communication

IRC

Internet Relay Chat

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

ISP

Internet Service Provider

KB

Kilobytes

LED

Light Emitting Diode

LFS

Linux From Scratch

LSB

Linux Standard Base

MB

Megabytes

MBR

Master Boot Record

MD5

Message Digest 5

NIC

Network Interface Card

NLS

Native Language Support

NNTP

Network News Transport Protocol

NPTL

Native POSIX Threading Library

OF

Open Firmware

OSS

Open Sound System

PCH

Pre-Compiled Headers

PCRE

Perl Compatible Regular Expression

PID

Process Identifier

PTY

pseudo terminal

QA

Quality Assurance

QOS

Quality Of Service

RAM

Random Access Memory

RPC

Remote Procedure Call

RTC

Real Time Clock

SCO

The Santa Cruz Operation

SATA

Serial ATA

SGR

Select Graphic Rendition

SHA1

Secure-Hash Algorithm 1

SMP

Symmetric Multi-Processor

TLDP

The Linux Documentation Project

TFTP

Trivial File Transfer Protocol

TLS

Thread-Local Storage

UID

User Identifier

umask

user file-creation mask

USB

Universal Serial Bus

UTC

Coordinated Universal Time

UUID

Universally Unique Identifier

VC

Virtual Console

VGA

Video Graphics Array

VT

Virtual Terminal

Appendix B. Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following people and organizations for their contributions to the Linux From Scratch Project.

  • Gerard Beekmans <gerard AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Creator, LFS Project Leader

  • Matthew Burgess <matthew AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Project Leader, LFS Technical Writer/Editor, LFS Release Manager

  • Archaic <archaic AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Technical Writer/Editor, HLFS Project Leader, BLFS Editor, Hints and Patches Project Maintainer

  • Nathan Coulson <nathan AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS-Bootscripts Maintainer

  • Bruce Dubbs <bdubbs AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – BLFS Project Leader

  • Manuel Canales Esparcia <manuel AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS/BLFS/HLFS XML and XSL Maintainer

  • Jim Gifford <jim AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Technical Writer, Patches Project Leader

  • Jeremy Huntwork <jhuntwork AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Technical Writer, LFS LiveCD Maintainer, ALFS Project Leader

  • Anderson Lizardo <lizardo AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – Website Backend-Scripts Maintainer

  • Ryan Oliver <ryan AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Toolchain Maintainer

  • James Robertson <jwrober AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – Bugzilla Maintainer

  • Tushar Teredesai <tushar AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – BLFS Book Editor, Hints and Patches Project Leader

  • Countless other people on the various LFS and BLFS mailing lists who helped make this book possible by giving their suggestions, testing the book, and submitting bug reports, instructions, and their experiences with installing various packages.

Translators

  • Manuel Canales Esparcia <macana AT lfs-es D0T com> – Spanish LFS translation project

  • Johan Lenglet <johan AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – French LFS translation project

  • Anderson Lizardo <lizardo AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – Portuguese LFS translation project

  • Thomas Reitelbach <tr AT erdfunkstelle D0T de> – German LFS translation project

Mirror Maintainers

North American Mirrors

  • Scott Kveton <scott AT osuosl D0T org> – lfs.oregonstate.edu mirror

  • Mikhail Pastukhov <miha AT xuy D0T biz> – lfs.130th.net mirror

  • William Astle <lost AT l-w D0T net> – ca.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Jeremy Polen <jpolen AT rackspace D0T com> – us2.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Tim Jackson <tim AT idge D0T net> – linuxfromscratch.idge.net mirror

  • Jeremy Utley <jeremy AT linux-phreak D0T net> – lfs.linux-phreak.net mirror

South American Mirrors

European Mirrors

  • Barna Koczka <barna AT siker D0T hu> – hu.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • UK Mirror Service – linuxfromscratch.mirror.ac.uk mirror

  • Martin Voss <Martin D0T Voss AT ada D0T de> – lfs.linux-matrix.net mirror

  • Guido Passet <guido AT primerelay D0T net> – nl.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Bastiaan Jacques <baafie AT planet D0T nl> – lfs.pagefault.net mirror

  • Roel Neefs <lfs-mirror AT linuxfromscratch D0T rave D0T org> – linuxfromscratch.rave.org mirror

  • Justin Knierim <justin AT jrknierim D0T de> – www.lfs-matrix.de mirror

  • Stephan Brendel <stevie AT stevie20 D0T de> – lfs.netservice-neuss.de mirror

  • Antonin Sprinzl <Antonin D0T Sprinzl AT tuwien D0T ac D0T at> – at.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Fredrik Danerklint <fredan-lfs AT fredan D0T org> – se.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Parisian sysadmins <archive AT doc D0T cs D0T univ-paris8 D0T fr> – www2.fr.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Alexander Velin <velin AT zadnik D0T org> – bg.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Dirk Webster <dirk AT securewebservices D0T co D0T uk> – lfs.securewebservices.co.uk mirror

  • Thomas Skyt <thomas AT sofagang D0T dk> – dk.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Simon Nicoll <sime AT dot-sime D0T com> – uk.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

Asian Mirrors

  • Pui Yong <pyng AT spam D0T averse D0T net> – sg.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

  • Stuart Harris <stuart AT althalus D0T me D0T uk> – lfs.mirror.intermedia.com.sg mirror

Australian Mirrors

  • Jason Andrade <jason AT dstc D0T edu D0T au> – au.linuxfromscratch.org mirror

Former Project Team Members

  • Christine Barczak <theladyskye AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Book Editor

  • Timothy Bauscher

  • Robert Briggs

  • Ian Chilton

  • Jeroen Coumans <jeroen AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – Website Developer, FAQ Maintainer

  • Alex Groenewoud – LFS Technical Writer

  • Marc Heerdink

  • Mark Hymers

  • Seth W. Klein – FAQ maintainer

  • Nicholas Leippe <nicholas AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – Wiki Maintainer

  • Simon Perreault

  • Scot Mc Pherson <scot AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS NNTP Gateway Maintainer

  • Alexander Patrakov <semzx AT newmail D0T ru> – LFS Technical Writer

  • Greg Schafer <gschafer AT zip D0T com D0T au> – LFS Technical Writer

  • Jesse Tie-Ten-Quee – LFS Technical Writer

  • Jeremy Utley <jeremy AT linuxfromscratch D0T org> – LFS Technical Writer, Bugzilla Maintainer, LFS-Bootscripts Maintainer

  • Zack Winkles <zwinkles AT gmail D0T com> – LFS Technical Writer

A very special thank you to our donators

  • Dean Benson <dean AT vipersoft D0T co D0T uk> for several monetary contributions

  • Hagen Herrschaft <hrx AT hrxnet D0T de> for donating a 2.2 GHz P4 system, now running under the name of Lorien

  • VA Software who, on behalf of Linux.com, donated a VA Linux 420 (former StartX SP2) workstation

  • Mark Stone for donating Belgarath, the linuxfromscratch.org server

Appendix C. Dependencies

Every package built in CLFS relies on one or more other packages in order to build and install properly. Some packages even participate in circular dependencies, that is, the first package depends on the second which in turn depends on the first. Because of these dependencies, the order in which packages are built in CLFS is very important. The purpose of this page is to document the dependencies of each package built in CLFS.

For each package we build, we have listed three types of dependencies. The first lists what other packages need to be available in order to compile and install the package in question. The second lists what packages, in addition to those on the first list, need to be available in order to run the testsuites. The last list of dependencies are packages that require this package to be built and installed in its final location before they are built and installed. In most cases, this is because these packages will hardcode paths to binaries within their scripts. If not built in a certain order, this could result in paths of /tools/bin/[binary] being placed inside scripts installed to the final system. This is obviously not desirable.

Autoconf

Installation depends on: Bash, Coreutils, Grep, M4, Make, Perl, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Automake, Diffutils, Findutils, GCC and Libtool
Must be installed before: Automake

Automake

Installation depends on: Autoconf, Bash, Coreutils, Gettext, Grep, M4, Make, Perl, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Binutils, Bison, Bzip2, DejaGNU, Diffutils, Expect, Findutils, Flex, GCC, Gettext, Gzip, Libtool and Tar. Can also use several other packages that are not installed in CLFS.
Must be installed before: None

Bash

Installation depends on: Bash, Bison, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Patch, Readline, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils and Gawk
Must be installed before: None

Binutils

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, File, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Perl, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: DejaGNU and Expect
Must be installed before: None

Bison

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, M4, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: Diffutils and Findutils
Must be installed before: Flex, Kbd and Tar

Bzip2

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Make and Patch
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

CLFS-Bootscripts

Installation depends on: Bash, Coreutils, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Coreutils

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Perl, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils
Must be installed before: Bash, Diffutils, Findutils, Man-DB and Udev

DejaGNU

Installation depends on: Bash, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Diffutils

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Expect

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Sed and Tcl
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

E2fsprogs

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Gawk, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Gzip, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils
Must be installed before: Util-Linux

File

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Zlib
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Findutils

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: DejaGNU, Diffutils and Expect
Must be installed before: None

Flex

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, M4, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Bison and Gawk
Must be installed before: IPRoute2, Kbd and Man-DB

Gawk

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils
Must be installed before: None

Gcc

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Findutils, Gawk, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Perl, Sed, Tar and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: DejaGNU and Expect
Must be installed before: None

Gettext

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils, Perl and Tcl
Must be installed before: Automake

Glibc

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Gawk, GCC, Gettext, Grep, Gzip, Make, Perl, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Grep

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils and Gawk
Must be installed before: Man-DB

Groff

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Bison, Coreutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Man and Perl

Gzip

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Man-DB

Iana-Etc

Installation depends on: Coreutils, Gawk and Make
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Perl

Inetutils

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Tar

IProute2

Installation depends on: Bash, Bison, Coreutils, Flex, GCC, Glibc, Make and Linux-Headers
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Kbd

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Bison, Coreutils, Flex, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Gzip, Make, Patch and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Less

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Libtool

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Findutils
Must be installed before: None

Linux-Headers

Installation depends on: Coreutils and Findutils
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Linux Kernel

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Findutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Gzip, Make, Mktemp, Module-Init-Tools, Ncurses and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

M4

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: Diffutils
Must be installed before: Autoconf and Bison

Man-DB

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Bzip2, Coreutils, Flex, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Groff, Gzip, Less, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Make

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Perl
Must be installed before: None

Mktemp

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Patch and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Module-Init-Tools

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Zlib
Test suite depends on: File, Findutils and Gawk
Must be installed before: None

Ncurses

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Bash, GRUB, Inetutils, Less, Procps, Psmisc, Readline, Texinfo, Util-Linux and Vim

Patch

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Perl

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Groff, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: Iana-Etc and Procps
Must be installed before: Autoconf

Procps

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Make and Ncurses
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Psmisc

Installation depends on: Bash, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Readline

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: Bash

Sed

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils and Gawk
Must be installed before: E2fsprogs, File, Libtool and Shadow

Shadow

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Findutils, Gawk, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Sysklogd

Installation depends on: Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Make and Patch
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Sysvinit

Installation depends on: Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Tar

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Bison, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Inetutils, Make, Patch, Sed and Texinfo
Test suite depends on: Diffutils, Findutils and Gawk
Must be installed before: None

Tcl

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Texinfo

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Patch and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Tree

Installation depends on: Coreutils, GCC and Make
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Udev

Installation depends on: Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc and Make
Test suite depends on: Findutils, Perl and Sed
Must be installed before: None

Udev Rules

Installation depends on: Bash, Coreutils, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Util-Linux

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, E2fprogs, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Patch, Sed and Zlib
Test suite depends on: No testsuite available
Must be installed before: None

Vim

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Zlib

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: File, Module-Init-Tools and Util-Linux

Appendix D. Sparc Dependencies

This page contains dependency information for packages specific to Alpha.

Aboot

Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, ELFtoaut, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Ncurses, Sed and Patch
Test suite depends on: None
Must be installed before: None

Index

Packages

Programs

Libraries

Scripts

Others