Platform-Specific Configuration and Operation Notes =================================================== 1. configure --without-gnu-malloc on: alpha running OSF/1 alpha running Linux next running NeXT/OS all machines running SunOS YP code: SunOS4, SunOS5, HP/UX linux (optional, but don't do it if you're using Doug Lea's malloc) QNX 4.2 other OSF/1 machines (KSR/1, HP, IBM AIX/ESA) AIX sparc SVR4, SVR4.2 (ICL reference port) DG/UX Cray NetBSD/sparc (malloc needs 8-byte alignment; GNU malloc has 4-byte) BSD/OS 2.1 if you want to use loadable builtins If you are using GNU libc, especially on a linux system (Configuring --without-gnu-malloc will still result in lib/malloc/libmalloc.a being built and linked against, but there is only a stub file in the archive.) 2. configure using shlicc on BSD/OS 2.1 to use loadable builtins 3. Bash cannot be built in a directory separate from the source directory using configure --srcdir=... unless the version of `make' you're using does $VPATH handling right. The script support/mkclone can be used to create a `build tree' using symlinks to get around this. 4. I've had reports that username completion (as well as tilde expansion and \u prompt expansion) does not work on IRIX 5.3 when linking with -lnsl. This is only a problem when you're running NIS, since apparently -lnsl supports only /etc/passwd and not the NIS functions for retrieving usernames and passwords. Editing the Makefile after configure runs and removing the `-lnsl' from the assignment to `LIBS' fixes the problem. 5. There is a problem with Red Hat Linux's `makewhatis' script. Running `makewhatis' with bash-2.0 results in error messages like this: /usr/sbin/makewhatis: cd: manpath: No such file or directory /usr/sbin/makewhatis: manpath/whatis: No such file or directory chmod: manpath/whatis: No such file or directory /usr/sbin/makewhatis: cd: catpath: No such file or directory /usr/sbin/makewhatis: catpath/whatis: No such file or directory chmod: catpath/whatis: No such file or directory The problem is with `makewhatis'. Red Hat (and possibly other Linux distributors) uses a construct like this in the code: eval path=$"$pages"path to do indirect variable expansion. This `happened to work' in bash-1.14 and previous versions, but that was more an accident of implementation than anything else -- it was never supported and certainly is not portable. Bash-2.0 has a new feature that gives a new meaning to $"...". This is explained more completely in item 1 in the COMPAT file. The three lines in the `makewhatis' script that need to be changed look like this: eval $topath=$"$topath":$name [...] eval path=$"$pages"path [...] eval path=$"$pages"path The portable way to write this code is eval $topath="\$$topath":$name eval path="\$$pages"path eval path="\$$pages"path You could also experiment with another new bash feature: ${!var}. This does indirect variable expansion, making the use of eval unnecessary. 6. There is a problem with syslogd on many Linux distributions (Red Hat and Slackware are two that I have received reports about). syslogd sends a SIGINT to its parent process, which is waiting for the daemon to finish its initialization. The parent process then dies due to the SIGINT, and bash reports it, causing unexpected console output while the system is booting that looks something like starting daemons: syslogd/etc/rc.d/rc.M: line 29: 38 Interrupt ${NET}/syslogd Bash-2.0 reports events such as processes dying in scripts due to signals when the standard output is a tty. Bash-1.14.x and previous versions did not report such events. This should probably be reported as a bug to whatever Linux distributor people see the problem on. In my opinion, syslogd should be changed to use some other method of communication, or the wrapper function (which appeared to be `daemon' when I looked at it some time ago) or script (which appeared to be `syslog') should catch SIGINT, since it's an expected event, and exit cleanly. 7. Several people have reported that `dip' (a program for SLIP/PPP on Linux) does not work with bash-2.0 installed as /bin/sh. I don't run any Linux boxes myself, and do not have the dip code handy to look at, but the `problem' with bash-2.0, as it has been related to me, is that bash requires the `-p' option to be supplied at invocation if it is to run setuid or setgid. This means, among other things, that setuid or setgid programs which call system(3) (a horrendously bad practice in any case) relinquish their setuid/setgid status in the child that's forked to execute /bin/sh. The following is an *unofficial* patch to bash-2.0 that causes it to not require `-p' to run setuid or setgid if invoked as `sh'. It has been reported to work on Linux. It will make your system vulnerable to bogus system(3) calls in setuid executables. --- ../bash-2.0.orig/shell.c Wed Dec 18 14:16:30 1996 +++ shell.c Fri Mar 7 13:12:03 1997 @@ -347,7 +347,7 @@ if (posixly_correct) posix_initialize (posixly_correct); - if (running_setuid && privileged_mode == 0) + if (running_setuid && privileged_mode == 0 && act_like_sh == 0) disable_priv_mode (); /* Need to get the argument to a -c option processed in the