1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Jack Bates [:nottheoilrig]]

I followed these instructions [1] to build Firefox, but when I run it, I get the following error:

> $ ./mach run
> [...]
> XPCOMGlueLoad error for file .../mozilla-central/obj-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/dist/bin/libnssutil3.so:
> .../mozilla-central/obj-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/dist/bin/libnssutil3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> $ 

This happens because mozilla-central/obj-x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/dist/bin/libnssutil3.so is an absolute symlink, so if I relocate the source tree to another filesystem location, I get this error.
What do you think about making the symlinks in the dist directory relative instead of absolute?

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/Simple_Firefox_build

Comment 1

[Jack Bates [:nottheoilrig]]

Attachment: Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

Make the symlinks in the dist directory relative instead of absolute.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/

Comment 2

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

FWIW, symbolic links are only the tip of the iceberg. There are many things that are not symbolic links and that reference absolute paths.

Comment 3

[Jack Bates [:nottheoilrig]]

I'm happy to take a look at the other things, as part of this issue or another.
So far I'm able to successfully run Firefox after addressing just the symlinks.

Comment 4

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Comment on attachment 8809624 [details]
Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/#review94712

This looks good to me.

I've scheduled a Try build to make sure automation is still happy after this change, just to be on the safe side. If that comes back green, we can land this.

Comment 5

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Comment on attachment 8809624 [details]
Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/#review94774

This broke a number of unit tests. Changing review flag accordingly.

Comment 6

[Jack Bates [:nottheoilrig]]

Comment on attachment 8809624 [details]
Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/diff/1-2/

Comment 7

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Comment on attachment 8809624 [details]
Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/#review98620

This looks good.

Sorry for the high latency on the review. Holidays and I was traveling all last week. I triggered a Try build on this and will land this if it comes back OK.

Comment 8

[Jack Bates [:nottheoilrig]]

Comment on attachment 8809624 [details]
Bug 1316735 - Relative symlinks in the dist directory.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/92148/#review98620

Great, thank you for reviewing this!

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/349a316ed0f7
Relative symlinks in the dist directory. r=gps

Comment 10

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Backed out in https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/5945dbd8d20c

Don't know yet how many other builds plan on failing, but Mac static analysis has already failed in packaging, https://treeherder.mozilla.org/logviewer.html#?job_id=7845558&repo=autoland

Comment 11

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

All Mac builds, and only Mac builds, apparently.

Comment 12

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

This is likely because we take the contents of $(DIST)/bin as well as some other stuff and create $(DIST)/$(MOZ_MACBUNDLE_NAME) (so like $(DIST)/Firefox.app) by mostly rsyncing the contents of the former to the latter:
https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/8103c612b79c2587ea4ca1b0a9f9f82db4b185b8/browser/app/Makefile.in#93

If the symlinks have relative paths they're going to wind up broken. We don't want to copy files here, since that wastes space (and breaks developer expectations). Ideally we'd put the symlinks directly into the bundle paths instead of $(DIST)/bin (bug 1223748) but nobody has fixed that yet.

Comment 13

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Thanks for the summary, Ted.

Welcome to the rabbit hole of the Firefox build system, Jack :/