August 2014 – Frank Leonhardt's Blog

FreeBSD ports build fails because of gfortran

I’ve been having some fun. I wanted to install the latest ported versions of Apache and PHP for test purposes, so set the thing compiling. There are a couple of gotchas!

First off, the current ports tree will throw errors on the Makefile due to invalid ‘t’ options and other fun things. That’s because make has been updated. In order to prevent you from using old “insecure” versions of FreeBSD, it’s considered “a good thing” to cause the build to break. I’m not kidding – it’s there in the bug reports.

You can get around this by extracting the new version of make for the 8.4 iso image (oldest updated version) – just copy it over the old one.

Some of the ports also require unzip, which you can build and install from its port in archivers.

Now we get to the fun part – because the current system uses CLANG but some of the ports disagree, when you go to build things like php5_extensions (I think the gd library in particular) it depends gcc, the GNU ‘C’ compiler, and other GNU tools – so it tries to build them. The preferred version appears to be 4.7, so off it goes. Until it goes crunch. On inspection it was attempting to build Fortran at the time. Fortran? It wasn’t obvious why it broke, but I doubted I or anyone else wanted stodgy old Fortran anyway, so why was it being built?

If you look in the config options you can choose whether or not you want Java. (No thanks). But in the Makefile it lists
LANGUAGES:= c,c++,objc,fortran
I’m guessing that’s Objective C in there – no thanks to that too. Unfortunately removing them from this assignment doesn’t solve the problem, but it helps. The next problem will come when, thanks to the new binary package system, it tries to make a tarball of the fortran stuff it never compiled. I haven’t found how this mechanism works, but if you create a couple of empty directories and a an empty file for the man page it’ll proceed oblivious. I haven’t noticed and adverse effects yet.

A final Pooh trap if you’re trying to build Apache 2.4, mod_php5 and php5-extensions is the Zen Thread-Safe options (ZTS). If you’re not consistent with these then Apache/mod_php will fail to load the extensions and print a warning in httpd-error.log. If you build www/mod_php5 you’ll see a warning like:

/!\ WARNING /!\ !!! If you have a threaded Apache, you must build lang/php5 with ZTS support to enable thread-safety in extensions !!!

Naturally, this was scary enough to make me stop the build “make config” to select the option. Unfortunately it’s also an option on lang/php5 and if you didn’t set it there then it’ll go crunch. Many, many thanks to Matthew Seaman from FreeBSD.org, who figured out what I’d done wrong.

27-August-1427-August-14

No-IP, no sales

No IP is my Dynamic DNS provider of choice. They provide a fuss free service if you need to assign a DNS entry to a dynamic address, and it’s also free of charge. What’s not to like?

If that’s not reason enough to support them, they had a bit of bullying from Microsoft lately, but are now back on-line. If I needed an external DNS provider, I reckon they deserve my business. So how curious that they don’t have a sales department? At least none that I’ve been able to contact. Out of desperation I emailed the webmaster (the most likely contact in their published list) and got an (automated) reply suggesting I raise a support ticket.

Needless to say, when I tried to raise a ticket it asked me a load of questions about the product I had. “Not applicable”.

If it turns to be too much hassle trying to buy a service from them, I’ll just have to peer with someone. Does anyone with BIND running in a DS that I’m not in want to do a swap on DNS replication? Why? 512K day, that’s why!

23-August-1427-August-14

Tesco really doesn’t like journalists

I just had a most interesting experience at Tesco in Watford. I went to take a picture with a mobile phone and was suddenly surrounded by burly security guards. Apparently it’s company policy that no one is to take pictures in Tesco, or even Tesco car parks. How odd!

Okay, it’s private property and they can make up whatever rules they like. If you need a shot of their pick and mix, you’ll need a long lens so you can stand on the road outside. But it begs the question, are they stark raving mad?

Luckily a manager turned up pronto (presumably someone pressed the panic alarm), and I persuaded her to send the security people away while she explained – in fact the outcome was very satisfactory from my perspective, and should I ever need to speak to a manager within 30 seconds again, I now have a sure-fire method.

As a long-time hack, I know what I’m about when it comes to taking pictures. Normally, when you’re taking photographs with a camera on a mobile phone, it’s pretty clear you’re not doing so for commercial reasons and it’s unusual for anyone to complain. Okay, if I had my big press camera with me, I’d certainly have asked permission to photograph/film. Or I’d have used a hidden camera. But it wasn’t like that – in fact I was shooting the contents of my shopping trolley as a record – obviously domestic use only, and I even mentioned to a member of staff nearby that I was getting a shot of that if he had no objections.

So can they do this? Well it’s not illegal. They can make up any rules they like about who can and who can’t enter their premises and if they want to ban people taking photographs, they can. They could get a court order and bar you from every Tesco store in the country. What they can’t do (if this happens to you) is make you delete any photographs you have already taken, and neither can they touch you or your camera – that’s common assault.

But why should it come to this? Surely Tesco doesn’t hate journalists? Actually, I doubt they even realised. But on asking around, they have form in this respect. Had of Patrick Collinson’s experiences I’d have been prepared, but he was writing in The Guardian when he was nabbed for noting down prices.

So is this a one store going bonkers (I’ve not had any bother at my local Tesco, although don’t often shop there these days)? I set out to find a security guard who’d talk, and it didn’t take long (but he’s not from Watford, in case anyone from Tesco is reading this!)

Apparently, the only photographs allowed are general ones of the exterior of the shop. If you’re audacious enough to snap something specific, like and advert, or one of their products, they’re instructions are to “ask you why, and ask you to stop”. Obviously the “why” is out of politeness. And if you’re inside the shop, forget it! You need special permission from the duty manager, sign-in and have to wear a visitor’s badge. Want to shoot some grocery or other and send it to your other half for approval? Not in Tesco, you don’t.

It gets worse! Should you try this and then refuse to stop, Tesco security is instructed to detain you, call the cops and try to have you charged under Blair’s masterpiece, the Prevention of Terrorism Act [2005]. [I think he may be confusing this with Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000]. Boggle! I asked if he thought someone was pulling his leg, but apparently Tesco reckons that people taking pictures may be doing so in order to choose locations for placing bombs. They had some bother in 2007 with bomb hoaxes, and therefore this policy is for “our” protection. Somehow, without photographs, it must be very difficult to leave a bomb behind. Doesn’t that make you feel safer?

Or perhaps they’re still smarting after that youtube video of the horseburger skit.

I’ve written to Tesco for a clarification of this, but they have so far declined to comment. I certainly can’t find anything to suggest this is a genuine policy in writing, and I don’t recall every seeing any “no photograph” signs up. But the my source was adamant. Perhaps it’s a myth. I hope so. One incident like this, or Patrick Collinson’s won’t damage their business much in itself, but every little helps.