directory prefix in freeradius-devel vs. include

[Alan DeKok]

On Oct 20, 2015, at 10:39 AM, Eran Pasternak <eran.pasternak at forescout.com> wrote:
> I'm developing FR which is not installed in the standard location. Specifically raddb dir is not the default so when running radclient (and other applications) I have to add its location (with the '-d' flag). This is required even though the compilation is configured with the appropriate @prefix@ for this location.

  Hmm.. you can check the file Make.inc to see what the raddbdir is set to.  radclient *will* use that directory.

> I noticed that radclient.c (and others) use h files from 'freeradius-devel' and not 'include'.

  Yes.  Because you might already have FreeRADIUS headers installed for version X, and are building for version Y.  If the build process for version Y used the standard include files, it would grab the headers for version X.  And all kinds of things would go wrong.

  When the headers are installed, the includes that *they* use are changed.  See the make files in src/include.

> Now in the 'include' dir 'build-radpaths-h' uses my configured prefix while in 'freeradius-devel' it doesn't which is obviously the reason why the prefix have no effect for radclient.

  I don't know what that means.  "freeradius-devel" is a directory.  What *file* contains the wrong prefix?  Where is that file on disk?

On my system, I get:

$ grep RADDBDIR src/include/*.h
src/include/conf.h:#define RADIUS_DIR		RADDBDIR
src/include/radpaths.h:#define RADDBDIR	"/home/aland/test/etc/raddb"

  Which is fine.

  If I look in /usr/include/freeradius/radpaths.h, I might get a different value for RADDBDIR... because it's for a different version of the server.

> I couldn't find a way to make the configure script or whatever to place the prefix in 'freeradius-devel' as well.

  Again, freeradius-devel is a directory.  The file src/include/radpaths.h has the correct path for RADDBDIR... *for the version you are building*.

  The file in /usr/include/freeradius/radpaths.h has the correct path *for the version which is installed*.

  The two paths might be different.

>  Bottom line is why are these two separate directories which are identical (aside from the paths)?

  Because they're for two different versions of the server.

> And how to "convey" the prefix to the files in 'freeradius-devel'.

  You don't.  It's added there automatically.

  When you're running radclient from the *installed* location, it uses the *installed* path for RADDBDIR.  When you're building radclient from the *source*, that version of radclient uses the value of RADDBDIR which is taken from src/include/radpaths.h.

  And *nothing* in the source tree does:

#include <freeradius/foo.h>

  It' s*always*

#include <freeradius-devel/foo.h>

  And the freeradius-devel directory is a symlink to src/include/ in the build tree.

  So... *which* radclient are you running?  The installed one?  Or the one from the source tree?

  Most of this confusion can be avoided by *not* installing a production version of FreeRADIUS on a development machine.  That way there's only one version of radclient, only one version of the headers, and only one path for RADDBDIR.

  Alan DeKok.