Collision with SystemTap on 'dtrace' binary (/usr/bin/dtrace vs /usr/sbin/dtrace)
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- Dominant language
- C
- Stars
- 189
- Forks
- 23
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Both SystemTap and DTrace install a dtrace binary. SystemTap does it at /usr/bin/dtrace for historical reasons as a wrapper, while DTrace installs it at /usr/sbin/dtrace.
While they're at two different paths, this is both:
a) confusing as it depends on order in PATH;
b) an actual collision on systems where /usr/bin == /usr/sbin (Gentoo does this on new systems, I believe Fedora is planning it, and so on)
On our side downstream in Gentoo, this is tracked as https://bugs.gentoo.org/938302.
This makes packaging DTrace difficult, and it also makes life hard for users who want to try both SystemTap and DTrace, as their target audience has a lot of intersection.
A solution needs to be worked out with the SystemTap folks on this. I suggest renaming the SystemTap wrapper to stap-dtrace with an optional compatibility dtrace -> stap-dtrace symlink on their side.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reviewing the installation paths mentioned for DTrace and comparing them with SystemTap's /usr/bin/dtrace wrapper. The work is complete only when the two projects agree on a naming and compatibility approach that avoids collisions when /usr/bin and /usr/sbin are unified.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- linux
- Domain
- build-system, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100