mapbox / mapbox/logbt

More robust recommended method to install

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Dominant language
Shell
Stars
25
Forks
7
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

There is a no standard package manager for bash scripts. So we've given the recommendation for a one-liner that uses `curl` and `tar` in the readme: https://github.com/mapbox/logbt#install.

This issue is to summarize problems with the current approach and discuss improvements.

Current problems:

- tar on linux does not support `--include` (only bsdtar on osx supports --include). Ideally the install would recommend `--include=bin*` such that only `./bin/logbt` would be installed into `/usr/local/bin/logbt`
- So, we recommend `--exclude`, but this is fragile because new files added to the repo, like `.travis.yml` or `circle.yml` will start getting installed into `/usr/local/.travis.yml`.
- `/usr/local/.travis.yml` may easily conflict with other installs using this kind of mechanism
- Permissions problems can lead to odd tar errors: `Can't unlink already-existing object` will happen if the install tries to write over an existing file that is write protected in a directory that it does have permissions to write to.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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 with the installation instructions in the README at https://github.com/mapbox/logbt#install and reproduce the current curl-and-tar command on Linux and macOS. Review the reported --include, --exclude, repository-file, and permission problems; done requires an agreed installation approach that avoids installing unintended files and handles existing permissions reliably.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
bash, shell
Domain
cli, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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