MacPorts (aka DarwinPorts) or Fink on OS X Server - problematic or OK?

Originated in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3931013
pterobyte states:
"…My personal experiences with Darwinports on OS X Server are not very good (Client is fine)."

Unfortunately the thread is archived ond one is not allowed to reply to it("!#=), hence this new thread.

pterobyte et. al. what is problematic?
- At the moment I have been using it (MacPorts) to get ImageMagick working on my 10.4.9 server - I have not seen problems but I would like to AVOID problems in the future, so please enlighten me?


TIA - TvE

iMac 24" and a lot more Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on May 27, 2007 6:22 AM

Reply
5 replies

May 27, 2007 7:20 AM in response to Thomas von Eyben

I am not saying that Darwinports, fink, etc, never work on OS X Server, but I have seen too many issues to be able to recommend using those "distribution/installation" methods.

From my experience the main issues are:
-Often non-standard locations are used. While this avoids overwriting existing software it also avoids software not installed with any of the above methods seeing libraries et al.

-Quite often duplicate libraries are installed. A waste of space and potentially a cause for problems, when one software calls one version of the library, while another calls a different one.

-Using this method you never really know what gets installed, if it installs duplicates and so on. Thus, making troubleshooting a pain.

Having said that, you do not state what you need to install, so it is impossible to give you a more specific answer.

May 28, 2007 2:35 PM in response to pterobyte

Hi Pterobyte

Thanx for the details!

My main reason to use a packagesystem is to benefit from the totally seperate directory - EG have it totally seperate from the APple-installed stuff. For the moment that benefit is worth more to me than the loss of diskspace etc.

That might change! while my skills in the compile-SW improves, EG. from reading posts in this forum as well as the very interesting articles you have provided on the topicdesk site (my mailserver is having great benefit from your spam-fighting articles!!!)


Actually I am trying to get mailgraph.pl working on 10.4.9 Server and have (on a testing server so I am not destroying anything important 😉 used MacPorts to get RRDtool installed.
Apparently the RRDtool seems to be working since I am able to use the provided examples and get the graphs generated.

My problem comes when I am trying to actually launch mailgraph.pl (a seperate DL - EG not from MacPorts 🙂

The problem looks to me to be Perl related, and since Perl is a brand new area for me I might be missing the obvious.

I am getting this error:
alpha:~/Desktop/mailgraph-1.13 ladmin$ ./mailgraph.pl
Can't locate RRDs.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 .) at ./mailgraph.pl line 364.



Even though I have followed this solution:
http://lists.ee.ethz.ch/mailgraph/msg00173.html
and added this line to mailgraph.pl: use lib '/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8';

I have verifyed the existense of the RRDs.pm
alpha:~/Desktop/mailgraph-1.13 ladmin$ locate RRDs.pm
/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level/RRDs.pm
/opt/local/var/db/dports/software/rrdtool/1.2.23 0/opt/local/lib/perl5/siteperl/5.8.8/darwin-2level/RRDs.pm



Changing the "use..." line to point one folder deeper, like this: use lib '/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level/';
changes the error message but only slightly:

alpha:~/Desktop/mailgraph-1.13 ladmin$ ./mailgraph.pl
Can't load '/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level//auto/RRDs/RRDs.bundle' for module RRDs: dlopen(/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level//auto/RRDs/RRDs.bundl e, 1): Symbol not found: PLop
Referenced from: /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level//auto/RRDs/RRDs.bundle
Expected in: dynamic lookup
at ./mailgraph.pl line 364


I have also installed (according to the requirement in the README) the "File::Tail" module via CPAN, this can be verifyed using "perldoc perllocal":

Mon May 28 13:45:25 2007: "Module" File::Tail
o "installed into: /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8"
o "LINKTYPE: dynamic"
o "VERSION: 0.99.3"
o "EXE_FILES: "



I would expect that it should be possible to get it (mailgraph) to work based on MacPorts, if not I'll probably end up using your topicdesk amavis-stats:
http://osx.topicdesk.com/content/view/42/80/
as well as RRDtool
http://osx.topicdesk.com/content/view/71/62/


PS.: I am in the process of subscribing to the mailgraph-mailinglist since that might be the best startingpoint to figure out what is wrong…


iMac 24" and a lot more Mac OS X (10.4.9)

iMac 24" and a lot more Mac OS X (10.4.9)

May 28, 2007 11:05 PM in response to Thomas von Eyben

You hit one of the reason I can't recommend MacPorts. Anything not installed through MacPorts will never find the required libraries and scripts.

Change:
use lib '/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8';
to
use lib '/opt/local/var/db/dports/software/rrdtool/1.2.23 0/opt/local/lib/perl5/siteperl/5.8.8/ ';
(based on the output you posted)


If that doesn't work, you'll need to figure out where MacPorts could have hidden what is needed.

Once you find it, you will need to add "use lib..." to mailgraph.cgi as well.

Alex

P.S. I will be posting a Mailgraph tutorial in the near future.

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MacPorts (aka DarwinPorts) or Fink on OS X Server - problematic or OK?

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