NVIDIA / NVIDIA/nvidia-installer

Feature request: configurable backup/state directory (currently hardcoded to `/var/lib/nvidia`)

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Dominant language
C
Stars
158
Forks
36
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

The backup directory path is hardcoded as #define BACKUP_DIRECTORY "/var/lib/nvidia" in backup.c. During RPM packaging in a mock chroot, the build user (mockbuild) cannot write to /var/lib/ (root-owned, 0755), causing the installer to fail.

Currently we work around this by binary-patching the installer with sed -i 's|/var/lib/nvidia|/var/tmp/nvidia|g' nvidia-installer, which is not great.

Would it be possible to add an option like --state-dir=/path or --backup-dir=/path to make this configurable? This would complement a --destdir option. But even without --destdir, having a way to relocate the state directory would help packaging use cases.

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in backup.c at the BACKUP_DIRECTORY definition and trace how nvidia-installer uses that path during backup and state handling. Review the installer’s option handling to determine where a state or backup directory option belongs. Done means the directory is configurable without binary patching and the mockbuild RPM packaging case can use a writable path.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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