Linux From Scratch

Version 7.8-systemd

Created by Gerard Beekmans

Edited by Douglas R. Reno

Copyright © 1999-2015, Gerard Beekmans

All rights reserved.

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Computer instructions may be extracted from the book under the MIT License.

Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.


Table of Contents

Preface

Foreword

My journey to learn and better understand Linux began over a decade ago, back in 1998. I had just installed my first Linux distribution and had quickly become intrigued with the whole concept and philosophy behind Linux.

There are always many ways to accomplish a single task. The same can be said about Linux distributions. A great many have existed over the years. Some still exist, some have morphed into something else, yet others have been relegated to our memories. They all do things differently to suit the needs of their target audience. Because so many different ways to accomplish the same end goal exist, I began to realize I no longer had to be limited by any one implementation. Prior to discovering Linux, we simply put up with issues in other Operating Systems as you had no choice. It was what it was, whether you liked it or not. With Linux, the concept of choice began to emerge. If you didn't like something, you were free, even encouraged, to change it.

I tried a number of distributions and could not decide on any one. They were great systems in their own right. It wasn't a matter of right and wrong anymore. It had become a matter of personal taste. With all that choice available, it became apparent that there would not be a single system that would be perfect for me. So I set out to create my own Linux system that would fully conform to my personal preferences.

To truly make it my own system, I resolved to compile everything from source code instead of using pre-compiled binary packages. This perfect Linux system would have the strengths of various systems without their perceived weaknesses. At first, the idea was rather daunting. I remained committed to the idea that such a system could be built.

After sorting through issues such as circular dependencies and compile-time errors, I finally built a custom-built Linux system. It was fully operational and perfectly usable like any of the other Linux systems out there at the time. But it was my own creation. It was very satisfying to have put together such a system myself. The only thing better would have been to create each piece of software myself. This was the next best thing.

As I shared my goals and experiences with other members of the Linux community, it became apparent that there was a sustained interest in these ideas. It quickly became plain that such custom-built Linux systems serve not only to meet user specific requirements, but also serve as an ideal learning opportunity for programmers and system administrators to enhance their (existing) Linux skills. Out of this broadened interest, the Linux From Scratch Project was born.

This Linux From Scratch book is the central core around that project. It provides the background and instructions necessary for you to design and build your own system. While this book provides a template that will result in a correctly working system, you are free to alter the instructions to suit yourself, which is, in part, an important part of this project. You remain in control; we just lend a helping hand to get you started on your own journey.

I sincerely hope you will have a great time working on your own Linux From Scratch system and enjoy the numerous benefits of having a system that is truly your own.

--
Gerard Beekmans
gerard AT linuxfromscratch D0T org

Audience

There are many reasons why you would want to read this book. One of the questions many people raise is, why go through all the hassle of manually building a Linux system from scratch when you can just download and install an existing one?

One important reason for this project's existence is to help you learn how a Linux system works from the inside out. Building an LFS system helps demonstrate what makes Linux tick, and how things work together and depend on each other. One of the best things that this learning experience can provide is the ability to customize a Linux system to suit your own unique needs.

Another key benefit of LFS is that it allows you to have more control over the system without relying on someone else's Linux implementation. With LFS, you are in the driver's seat and dictate every aspect of the system.

LFS allows you to create very compact Linux systems. When installing regular distributions, you are often forced to install a great many programs which are probably never used or understood. These programs waste resources. You may argue that with today's hard drive and CPUs, such resources are no longer a consideration. Sometimes, however, you are still constrained by size considerations if nothing else. Think about bootable CDs, USB sticks, and embedded systems. Those are areas where LFS can be beneficial.

Another advantage of a custom built Linux system is security. By compiling the entire system from source code, you are empowered to audit everything and apply all the security patches desired. It is no longer necessary to wait for somebody else to compile binary packages that fix a security hole. Unless you examine the patch and implement it yourself, you have no guarantee that the new binary package was built correctly and adequately fixes the problem.

The goal of Linux From Scratch is to build a complete and usable foundation-level system. If you do not wish to build your own Linux system from scratch, you may not entirely benefit from the information in this book.

There are too many other good reasons to build your own LFS system to list them all here. In the end, education is by far the most powerful of reasons. As you continue in your LFS experience, you will discover the power that information and knowledge truly bring.

LFS Target Architectures

The primary target architectures of LFS are the AMD/Intel x86 (32-bit) and x86_64 (64-bit) CPUs. On the other hand, the instructions in this book are also known to work, with some modifications, with the Power PC and ARM CPUs. To build a system that utilizes one of these CPUs, the main prerequisite, in addition to those on the next few pages, is an existing Linux system such as an earlier LFS installation, Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE, or other distribution that targets the architecture that you have. Also note that a 32-bit distribution can be installed and used as a host system on a 64-bit AMD/Intel computer.

Some other facts about 64-bit systems need to be added here. When compared to a 32-bit system, the sizes of executable programs are slightly larger and the execution speeds are only slightly faster. For example, in a test build of LFS-6.5 on a Core2Duo CPU based system, the following statistics were measured:

Architecture Build Time     Build Size
32-bit       198.5 minutes  648 MB
64-bit       190.6 minutes  709 MB

As you can see, the 64-bit build is only 4% faster and is 9% larger than the 32-bit build. The gain from going to a 64-bit system is relatively minimal. Of course, if you have more than 4GB of RAM or want to manipulate data that exceeds 4GB, the advantages of a 64-bit system are substantial.

The default 64-bit build that results from LFS is considered a "pure" 64-bit system. That is, it supports 64-bit executables only. Building a "multi-lib" system requires compiling many applications twice, once for a 32-bit system and once for a 64-bit system. This is not directly supported in LFS because it would interfere with the educational objective of providing the instructions needed for a straightforward base Linux system. You can refer to the Cross Linux From Scratch project for this advanced topic.

There is one last comment about 64-bit systems. There are some older packages that cannot currently be built in a "pure" 64-bit system or require specialized build instructions. Generally, these packages have some embedded 32-bit specific assembly language instructions that fail when building on a 64-bit system. This includes some Xorg drivers for some legacy video cards at http://xorg.freedesktop.org/releases/individual/driver/. Many of these problems can be worked around, but may require some specialized procedures or patches.

LFS and Standards

The structure of LFS follows Linux standards as closely as possible. The primary standards are:

  • POSIX.1-2008.

  • Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) Version 3.0

  • Linux Standard Base (LSB) Version 5.0

    The LSB has four separate standards: Core, Desktop, Runtime Languages, and Imaging. In addition to generic requirements there are also architecture specific requirements. There are also two areas for trial use: Gtk3 and Graphics. LFS attempts to conform to the architectures discussed in the previous section.

    Note

    Many people do not agree with the requirements of the LSB. The main purpose of defining it is to ensure that proprietary software will be able to be installed and run properly on a compliant system. Since LFS is source based, the user has complete control over what packages are desired and many choose not to install some packages that are specified by the LSB.

Creating a complete LFS system capable of passing the LSB certifications tests is possible, but not without many additional packages that are beyond the scope of LFS. These additional packages have installation instructions in BLFS.

Packages supplied by LFS needed to satisfy the LSB Requirements

LSB Core:

Bash, Bc, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, File, Findutils, Gawk, Grep, GTK+2, Gzip, M4, Man-DB, Ncurses, Procps, Psmisc, Sed, Shadow, Tar, Util-linux, Zlib

LSB Desktop:

None

LSB Runtime Languages:

Perl

LSB Imaging:

None

LSB Gtk3 and LSB Graphics (Trial Use):

None

Packages supplied by BLFS needed to satisfy the LSB Requirements

LSB Core:

At, Batch (a part of At), Cpio, Ed, Fcrontab, Initd-tools, Lsb_release, NSPR, NSS, PAM, Pax, Sendmail (or Postfix or Exim), time

LSB Desktop:

Alsa, ATK, Cairo, Desktop-file-utils, Freetype, Fontconfig, Gdk-pixbuf, Glib2, Icon-naming-utils, Libjpeg-turbo, Libpng, Libtiff, Libxml2, MesaLib, Pango, Qt4, Xdg-utils, Xorg

LSB Runtime Languages:

Python, Libxml2, Libxslt

LSB Imaging:

CUPS, Cups-filters, Ghostscript, SANE

LSB Gtk3 and LSB Graphics (Trial Use):

GTK+3

Packages not supplied by LFS or BLFS needed to satisfy the LSB Requirements

LSB Core:

None

LSB Desktop:

None

LSB Runtime Languages:

None

LSB Imaging:

None

LSB Gtk3 and LSB Graphics (Trial Use):

None

Rationale for Packages in the Book

As stated earlier, the goal of LFS is to build a complete and usable foundation-level system. This includes all packages needed to replicate itself while providing a relatively minimal base from which to customize a more complete system based on the choices of the user. This does not mean that LFS is the smallest system possible. Several important packages are included that are not strictly required. The lists below document the rationale for each package in the book.

  • Acl

    This package contains utilities to administer Access Control Lists, which are used to define more fine-grained discretionary access rights for files and directories.

  • Attr

    This package contains programs for administering extended attributes on filesystem objects.

  • Autoconf

    This package contains programs for producing shell scripts that can automatically configure source code from a developer's template. It is often needed to rebuild a package after updates to the build procedures.

  • Automake

    This package contains programs for generating Make files from a template. It is often needed to rebuild a package after updates to the build procedures.

  • Bash

    This package satisfies an LSB core requirement to provide a Bourne Shell interface to the system. It was chosen over other shell packages because of its common usage and extensive capabilities beyond basic shell functions.

  • Bc

    This package provides an arbitrary precision numeric processing language. It satisfies a requirement needed when building the Linux kernel.

  • Binutils

    This package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files. The programs in this package are needed to compile most of the packages in an LFS system and beyond.

  • Bison

    This package contains the GNU version of yacc (Yet Another Compiler Compiler) needed to build several other LFS programs.

  • Bzip2

    This package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. It is required to decompress many LFS packages.

  • Check

    This package contains a test harness for other programs. It is only installed in the temporary toolchain.

  • Coreutils

    This package contains a number of essential programs for viewing and manipulating files and directories. These programs are needed for command line file management, and are necessary for the installation procedures of every package in LFS.

  • D-Bus

    This package contains programs to implement a message bus system, which a simple way for applications to talk to one another. It is required by systemd.

  • DejaGNU

    This package contains a framework for testing other programs. It is only installed in the temporary toolchain.

  • Diffutils

    This package contains programs that show the differences between files or directories. These programs can be used to create patches, and are also used in many packages' build procedures.

  • E2fsprogs

    This package contains the utilities for handling the ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. These are the most common and thoroughly tested file systems that Linux supports.

  • Expat

    This package contains a relatively small XML parsing library. It is required by the XML::Parser Perl module.

  • Expect

    This package contains a program for carrying out scripted dialogues with other interactive programs. It is commonly used for testing other packages. It is only installed in the temporary toolchain.

  • File

    This package contains a utility for determining the type of a given file or files. A few packages need it to build.

  • Findutils

    This package contains programs to find files in a file system. It is used in many packages' build scripts.

  • Flex

    This package contains a utility for generating programs that recognize patterns in text. It is the GNU version of the lex (lexical analyzer) program. It is required to build several LFS packages.

  • Gawk

    This package contains programs for manipulating text files. It is the GNU version of awk (Aho-Weinberg-Kernighan). It is used in many other packages' build scripts.

  • Gcc

    This package is the Gnu Compiler Collection. It contains the C and C++ compilers as well as several others not built by LFS.

  • GDBM

    This package contains the GNU Database Manager library. It is used by one other LFS package, Man-DB.

  • Gettext

    This package contains utilities and libraries for internationalization and localization of numerous packages.

  • Glibc

    This package contains the main C library. Linux programs would not run without it.

  • GMP

    This package contains math libraries that provide useful functions for arbitrary precision arithmetic. It is required to build Gcc.

  • Gperf

    This package contains a program that generates a perfect hash function from a key set. It is required for systemd.

  • Grep

    This package contains programs for searching through files. These programs are used by most packages' build scripts.

  • Groff

    This package contains programs for processing and formatting text. One important function of these programs is to format man pages.

  • GRUB

    This package is the Grand Unified Boot Loader. It is one of several boot loaders available, but is the most flexible.

  • Gzip

    This package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. It is needed to decompress many packages in LFS and beyond.

  • Iana-etc

    This package provides data for network services and protocols. It is needed to enable proper networking capabilities.

  • Inetutils

    This package contains programs for basic network administration.

  • Intltool

    This package contains tools for extracting translatable strings from source files.

  • IProute2

    This package contains programs for basic and advanced IPv4 and IPv6 networking. It was chosen over the other common network tools package (net-tools) for its IPv6 capabilities.

  • Kbd

    This package contains key-table files, keyboard utilities for non-US keyboards, and a number of console fonts.

  • Kmod

    This package contains programs needed to administer Linux kernel modules.

  • Less

    This package contains a very nice text file viewer that allows scrolling up or down when viewing a file. It is also used by Man-DB for viewing manpages.

  • Libcap

    This package implements the user-space interfaces to the POSIX 1003.1e capabilities available in Linux kernels.

  • Libpipeline

    The Libpipeline package contains a library for manipulating pipelines of subprocesses in a flexible and convenient way. It is required by the Man-DB package.

  • Libtool

    This package contains the GNU generic library support script. It wraps the complexity of using shared libraries in a consistent, portable interface. It is needed by the test suites in other LFS packages.

  • Linux Kernel

    This package is the Operating System. It is the Linux in the GNU/Linux environment.

  • M4

    This package contains a general text macro processor useful as a build tool for other programs.

  • Make

    This package contains a program for directing the building of packages. It is required by almost every package in LFS.

  • Man-DB

    This package contains programs for finding and viewing man pages. It was chosen instead of the man package due to superior internationalization capabilities. It supplies the man program.

  • Man-pages

    This package contains the actual contents of the basic Linux man pages.

  • MPC

    This package contains functions for the arithmetic of complex numbers. It is required by Gcc.

  • MPFR

    This package contains functions for multiple precision arithmetic. It is required by Gcc.

  • Ncurses

    This package contains libraries for terminal-independent handling of character screens. It is often used to provide cursor control for a menuing system. It is needed by a number of packages in LFS.

  • Patch

    This package contains a program for modifying or creating files by applying a patch file typically created by the diff program. It is needed by the build procedure for several LFS packages.

  • Perl

    This package is an interpreter for the runtime language PERL. It is needed for the installation and test suites of several LFS packages.

  • Pkg-config

    This package provides a program to return meta-data about an installed library or package.

  • Procps-NG

    This package contains programs for monitoring processes. These programs are useful for system administration, and are also used by the LFS Bootscripts.

  • Psmisc

    This package contains programs for displaying information about running processes. These programs are useful for system administration.

  • Readline

    This package is a set of libraries that offers command-line editing and history capabilities. It is used by Bash.

  • Sed

    This package allows editing of text without opening it in a text editor. It is also needed by most LFS packages' configure scripts.

  • Shadow

    This package contains programs for handling passwords in a secure way.

  • Systemd

    This package provides an init program and several additional boot and system control capabilites as an alternative to Sysvinit. It is used by many Linux distributions.

  • Tar

    This package provides archiving and extraction capabilities of virtually all packages used in LFS.

  • Tcl

    This package contains the Tool Command Language used in many test suites in LFS packages. It is only installed in the temporary toolchain.

  • Texinfo

    This package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting info pages. It is used in the installation procedures of many LFS packages.

  • Util-linux

    This package contains miscellaneous utility programs. Among them are utilities for handling file systems, consoles, partitions, and messages.

  • Vim

    This package contains an editor. It was chosen because of its compatibility with the classic vi editor and its huge number of powerful capabilities. An editor is a very personal choice for many users and any other editor could be substituted if desired.

  • XML::Parser

    This package is a Perl module that interfaces with Expat.

  • XZ Utils

    This package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. It provides the highest compression generally available and is useful for decompressing packages in XZ or LZMA format.

  • Zlib

    This package contains compression and decompression routines used by some programs.

Prerequisites

Building an LFS system is not a simple task. It requires a certain level of existing knowledge of Unix system administration in order to resolve problems and correctly execute the commands listed. In particular, as an absolute minimum, you should already have the ability to use the command line (shell) to copy or move files and directories, list directory and file contents, and change the current directory. It is also expected that you have a reasonable knowledge of using and installing Linux software.

Because the LFS book assumes at least this basic level of skill, the various LFS support forums are unlikely to be able to provide you with much assistance in these areas. You will find that your questions regarding such basic knowledge will likely go unanswered or you will simply be referred to the LFS essential pre-reading list.

Before building an LFS system, we recommend reading the following HOWTOs:

Host System Requirements

Your host system should have the following software with the minimum versions indicated. This should not be an issue for most modern Linux distributions. Also note that many distributions will place software headers into separate packages, often in the form of <package-name>-devel or <package-name>-dev. Be sure to install those if your distribution provides them.

Earlier versions of the listed software packages may work, but has not been tested.

  • Bash-3.2 (/bin/sh should be a symbolic or hard link to bash)

  • Binutils-2.17 (Versions greater than 2.25.1 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

  • Bison-2.3 (/usr/bin/yacc should be a link to bison or small script that executes bison)

  • Bzip2-1.0.4

  • Coreutils-6.9

  • Diffutils-2.8.1

  • Findutils-4.2.31

  • Gawk-4.0.1 (/usr/bin/awk should be a link to gawk)

  • GCC-4.1.2 including the C++ compiler, g++ (Versions greater than 5.2.0 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

    Note

    On some distributions, there have been reports that some libraries used by gcc can be in an inconsistent state and that this interferes with building some LFS packages. To check this, look in /usr/lib and possibly /usr/lib64 for libgmp.la, libmpfr.la, and libmpc.la. Either all three should be present or absent, but not only one or two. If the problem exists on your system, either rename or delete the .la files or install the appropriate missing package.

  • Glibc-2.11 (Versions greater than 2.22 are not recommended as they have not been tested)

  • Grep-2.5.1a

  • Gzip-1.3.12

  • Linux Kernel-2.6.32

    The reason for the kernel version requirement is that we specify that version when building glibc in Chapter 6 at the recommendation of the developers. It is also required by udev.

    If the host kernel is earlier than 2.6.32 you will need to replace the kernel with a more up to date version. There are two ways you can go about this. First, see if your Linux vendor provides a 2.6.32 or later kernel package. If so, you may wish to install it. If your vendor doesn't offer an acceptable kernel package, or you would prefer not to install it, you can compile a kernel yourself. Instructions for compiling the kernel and configuring the boot loader (assuming the host uses GRUB) are located in Chapter 8.

  • M4-1.4.10

  • Make-3.81

  • Patch-2.5.4

  • Perl-5.8.8

  • Sed-4.1.5

  • Tar-1.18

  • Texinfo-4.7

  • Xz-5.0.0

Note that the symlinks mentioned above are required to build an LFS system using the instructions contained within this book. Symlinks that point to other software (such as dash, mawk, etc.) may work, but are not tested or supported by the LFS development team, and may require either deviation from the instructions or additional patches to some packages.

To see whether your host system has all the appropriate versions, and the ability to compile programs, run the following:

cat > version-check.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
# Simple script to list version numbers of critical development tools
export LC_ALL=C
bash --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-4
echo "/bin/sh -> `readlink -f /bin/sh`"
echo -n "Binutils: "; ld --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f3-
bison --version | head -n1

if [ -h /usr/bin/yacc ]; then
  echo "/usr/bin/yacc -> `readlink -f /usr/bin/yacc`";
elif [ -x /usr/bin/yacc ]; then
  echo yacc is `/usr/bin/yacc --version | head -n1`
else
  echo "yacc not found" 
fi

bzip2 --version 2>&1 < /dev/null | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f1,6-
echo -n "Coreutils: "; chown --version | head -n1 | cut -d")" -f2
diff --version | head -n1
find --version | head -n1
gawk --version | head -n1

if [ -h /usr/bin/awk ]; then
  echo "/usr/bin/awk -> `readlink -f /usr/bin/awk`";
elif [ -x /usr/bin/awk ]; then
  echo awk is `/usr/bin/awk --version | head -n1`
else 
  echo "awk not found" 
fi

gcc --version | head -n1
g++ --version | head -n1
ldd --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f2-  # glibc version
grep --version | head -n1
gzip --version | head -n1
cat /proc/version
m4 --version | head -n1
make --version | head -n1
patch --version | head -n1
echo Perl `perl -V:version`
sed --version | head -n1
tar --version | head -n1
makeinfo --version | head -n1
xz --version | head -n1

echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c && g++ -o dummy dummy.c
if [ -x dummy ]
  then echo "g++ compilation OK";
  else echo "g++ compilation failed"; fi
rm -f dummy.c dummy
EOF

bash version-check.sh

Also check for some library consistency:

cat > library-check.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
for lib in lib{gmp,mpfr,mpc}.la; do
  echo $lib: $(if find /usr/lib* -name $lib|
               grep -q $lib;then :;else echo not;fi) found
done
unset lib
EOF

bash library-check.sh

The files identified by this script should be all present or all absent, but not only one or two present.

Typography

To make things easier to follow, there are a few typographical conventions used throughout this book. This section contains some examples of the typographical format found throughout Linux From Scratch.

./configure --prefix=/usr

This form of text is designed to be typed exactly as seen unless otherwise noted in the surrounding text. It is also used in the explanation sections to identify which of the commands is being referenced.

In some cases, a logical line is extended to two or more physical lines with a backslash at the end of the line.

CC="gcc -B/usr/bin/" ../binutils-2.18/configure \
  --prefix=/tools --disable-nls --disable-werror

Note that the backslash must be followed by an immediate return. Other whitespace characters like spaces or tab characters will create incorrect results.

install-info: unknown option '--dir-file=/mnt/lfs/usr/info/dir'

This form of text (fixed-width text) shows screen output, usually as the result of commands issued. This format is also used to show filenames, such as /etc/ld.so.conf.

Emphasis

This form of text is used for several purposes in the book. Its main purpose is to emphasize important points or items.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

This format is used for hyperlinks both within the LFS community and to external pages. It includes HOWTOs, download locations, and websites.

cat > $LFS/etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
......
EOF

This format is used when creating configuration files. The first command tells the system to create the file $LFS/etc/group from whatever is typed on the following lines until the sequence End Of File (EOF) is encountered. Therefore, this entire section is generally typed as seen.

<REPLACED TEXT>

This format is used to encapsulate text that is not to be typed as seen or for copy-and-paste operations.

[OPTIONAL TEXT]

This format is used to encapsulate text that is optional.

passwd(5)

This format is used to refer to a specific manual (man) page. The number inside parentheses indicates a specific section inside the manuals. For example, passwd has two man pages. Per LFS installation instructions, those two man pages will be located at /usr/share/man/man1/passwd.1 and /usr/share/man/man5/passwd.5. When the book uses passwd(5) it is specifically referring to /usr/share/man/man5/passwd.5. man passwd will print the first man page it finds that matches passwd, which will be /usr/share/man/man1/passwd.1. For this example, you will need to run man 5 passwd in order to read the specific page being referred to. It should be noted that most man pages do not have duplicate page names in different sections. Therefore, man <program name> is generally sufficient.

Structure

This book is divided into the following parts.

Part I - Introduction

Part I explains a few important notes on how to proceed with the LFS installation. This section also provides meta-information about the book.

Part II - Preparing for the Build

Part II describes how to prepare for the building process—making a partition, downloading the packages, and compiling temporary tools.

Part III - Building the LFS System

Part III guides the reader through the building of the LFS system—compiling and installing all the packages one by one, setting up the boot scripts, and installing the kernel. The resulting Linux system is the foundation on which other software can be built to expand the system as desired. At the end of this book, there is an easy to use reference listing all of the programs, libraries, and important files that have been installed.

Errata

The software used to create an LFS system is constantly being updated and enhanced. Security warnings and bug fixes may become available after the LFS book has been released. To check whether the package versions or instructions in this release of LFS need any modifications to accommodate security vulnerabilities or other bug fixes, please visit http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/errata/systemd/ before proceeding with your build. You should note any changes shown and apply them to the relevant section of the book as you progress with building the LFS system.

Part I. Introduction

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. How to Build an LFS System

The LFS system will be built by using an already installed Linux distribution (such as Debian, OpenMandriva, Fedora, or openSUSE). This existing Linux system (the host) will be used as a starting point to provide necessary programs, including a compiler, linker, and shell, to build the new system. Select the development option during the distribution installation to be able to access these tools.

As an alternative to installing a separate distribution onto your machine, you may wish to use a LiveCD from a commercial distribution.

Chapter 2 of this book describes how to create a new Linux native partition and file system. This is the place where the new LFS system will be compiled and installed. Chapter 3 explains which packages and patches need to be downloaded to build an LFS system and how to store them on the new file system. Chapter 4 discusses the setup of an appropriate working environment. Please read Chapter 4 carefully as it explains several important issues you need be aware of before beginning to work your way through Chapter 5 and beyond.

Chapter 5 explains the installation of a number of packages that will form the basic development suite (or toolchain) which is used to build the actual system in Chapter 6. Some of these packages are needed to resolve circular dependencies—for example, to compile a compiler, you need a compiler.

Chapter 5 also shows you how to build a first pass of the toolchain, including Binutils and GCC (first pass basically means these two core packages will be reinstalled). The next step is to build Glibc, the C library. Glibc will be compiled by the toolchain programs built in the first pass. Then, a second pass of the toolchain will be built. This time, the toolchain will be dynamically linked against the newly built Glibc. The remaining Chapter 5 packages are built using this second pass toolchain. When this is done, the LFS installation process will no longer depend on the host distribution, with the exception of the running kernel.

This effort to isolate the new system from the host distribution may seem excessive. A full technical explanation as to why this is done is provided in Section 5.2, “Toolchain Technical Notes”.

In Chapter 6, the full LFS system is built. The chroot (change root) program is used to enter a virtual environment and start a new shell whose root directory will be set to the LFS partition. This is very similar to rebooting and instructing the kernel to mount the LFS partition as the root partition. The system does not actually reboot, but instead uses chroot because creating a bootable system requires additional work which is not necessary just yet. The major advantage is that chrooting allows you to continue using the host system while LFS is being built. While waiting for package compilations to complete, you can continue using your computer as normal.

To finish the installation, the basic system configuration is set up in Chapter 7, and the kernel and boot loader are set up in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 contains information on continuing the LFS experience beyond this book. After the steps in this book have been implemented, the computer will be ready to reboot into the new LFS system.

This is the process in a nutshell. Detailed information on each step is discussed in the following chapters and package descriptions. Items that may seem complicated will be clarified, and everything will fall into place as you embark on the LFS adventure.

1.2. What's new since the last release

Below is a list of package updates made since the previous release of the book.

Upgraded to:

  • Binutils 2.25.1

  • Check 0.10.0

  • Coreutils 8.24

  • D-Bus-1.8.20

  • DejaGNU 1.5.3

  • E2fsprogs 1.42.13

  • File 5.24

  • Gawk 4.1.3

  • GCC 5.2.0

  • Gettext 0.19.5.1

  • Glibc 2.22

  • Inetutils 1.9.4

  • Intltool-0.51.0

  • IPRoute2 4.2.0

  • Kbd 2.0.3

  • Kmod 21

  • Libpipeline 1.4.1

  • Linux 4.2

  • Man-DB 2.7.2

  • Man-pages 4.02

  • MPC 1.0.3

  • MPFR 3.1.3

  • Ncurses 6.0

  • Patch 2.7.5

  • Perl 5.22.0

  • Procps-ng 3.3.11

  • Systemd 224

  • Texinfo 6.0

  • Tzdata 2015f

  • Util-Linux 2.27

  • XZ-Utils 5.2.1

Added:

  • bash-4.3.30-upstream_fixes-2.patch

  • glibc-2.22-upstream_i386_fix-1.patch

  • mpfr-3.1.3-upstream_fixes-1.patch

  • systemd-224-compat-3.patch

  • Tcl-core-8.6.4

Removed:

  • bash-4.3.30-upstream_fixes-1.patch

  • mpfr-3.1.2-upstream_fixes-3.patch

  • systemd-219-compat-1.patch

  • Tcl-8.6.3

1.3. Changelog

This is version 7.8-systemd of the Linux From Scratch book, dated September 28th, 2015. If this book is more than six months old, a newer and better version is probably already available. To find out, please check one of the mirrors via http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mirrors.html.

Below is a list of changes made since the previous release of the book.

Changelog Entries:

  • 2015-09-28

    • [renodr] - LFS 7.8-systemd released.

    • [renodr] - Fix a warning when doing the GCC compile tests.

    • [renodr] - Add additional discussion about copying LFS systems from one machine to another machine.

    • [renodr] - Provide ncurses non-wide-character libraries that are compliant with version 5 of ncurses.

    • [renodr] - Remove unnecessary sed in e2fsprogs.

    • [renodr] - Update to util-linux-2.27.

    • [renodr] - Update to linux-4.2.

    • [renodr] - Update to iproute2-4.2.0.

    • [renodr] - Refresh build sizes and SBU values.

  • 2015-08-25

    • [renodr] - Add an upstream patch for MPFR.

    • [renodr] - Update to libpipeline-1.4.1.

    • [renodr] - Update to linux-4.1.6.

    • [renodr] - Update to man-db-2.7.2.

    • [renodr] - Add a patch to allow glibc to build properly on i386 systems.

    • [renodr] - Remove obsolete r* programs from inetutils.

  • 2015-08-19

    • [bdubbs] - Add a workaround to ncurses in Chapter 5 for hosts that have mawk installed.

    • [renodr] - Update to binutils-2.25.1.

    • [renodr] - Update to check-0.10.0.

    • [renodr] - Update to procps-ng-3.3.11.

    • [renodr] - Update to man-pages-4.02.

    • [renodr] - Update to glibc-2.22.

    • [renodr] - Update to linux-4.1.5.

    • [renodr] - Update to tzdata2015f.

  • 2015-07-23

    • [krejzi] - Fixed a warning in the intltool-update perl script caused by perl-5.22.

    • [krejzi] - Updated to dbus-1.8.20.

    • [krejzi] - Updated to systemd-222.

  • 2015-07-16

    • [bdubbs] - Update to gcc-5.2.0. Fixes *3819.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to gettext-0.19.5.1. Fixes *3818.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to kbd-2.0.3. Fixes #3815.

  • 2015-07-12

    • [bdubbs] - Update to iproute2-4.1.1. Fixes *3811.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to file-5.24. Fixes *3812.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.1.2. Fixes #3814.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to gettext-0.19.5. Fixes #3813.

    • [bdubbs] - Fix a warning in the installed automake perl script. #3809.

  • 2015-07-04

    • [bdubbs] - Update to iproute2-4.1.0. Fixes *3802.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to texinfo-6.0. Fixes *3803.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.1.1. Fixes #3805.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to coreutils-8.24. Fixes #3806.

    • [bdubbs] - Update perl installed files. Fixes #3804.

  • 2015-06-28

    • [krejzi] - Updated to systemd-221.

  • 2015-06-23

    • [bdubbs] - Update to tzdata-2015e. Fixes *3798.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to mpfr-3.1.3. Fixes #3800.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.1. Fixes #3801.

  • 2015-06-13

    • [bdubbs] - Simplify gcc-pass1 instructions. Thanks to Pierre Labastie for the patch. Fixes #3797.

  • 2015-06-10

    • [bdubbs] - Update standards discussion for FHS 3.0 and LSB-5.0.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to inetutils-1.9.4. Fixes #3796.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to file-5.23. Fixes #3795.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to kmod-21. Fixes #3794.

  • 2015-06-07

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.0.5. Fixes #3793.

  • 2015-06-05

    • [bdubbs] - Update to perl-5.22.0. Fixes #3791.

  • 2015-05-25

    • [bdubbs] - Update to bash-4.3.30-upstream_fixes-2.patch. Fixes #3789.

  • 2015-05-23

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.0.4. Fixes #3786.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to e2fsprogs-1.42.13. Fixes #3787.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to gawk-4.1.3. Fixes #3788.

    • [bdubbs] - Added a new patch for gcc to fix inline issues and some libgomp problems.

  • 2015-05-15

    • [bdubbs] - Add a patch from upstream to fix some libgomp (gcc) problems.

  • 2015-05-14

    • [bdubbs] - Update to gawk-4.1.2. Fixes #3781.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.0.3. Fixes #3782.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to util-linux-2.26.2. Fixes #3783.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to man-pages-4.00. Fixes #3784.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to inetutils-1.9.3. Fixes #3785.

    • [krejzi] - Updated to dbus-1.8.18.

  • 2015-04-26

    • [bdubbs] - Updated to tzdata-2015d. Fixes #3780.

  • 2015-04-24

    • [krejzi] - Added a fix for security issue in Glibc (CVE-2015-1781). Thanks to Ken Moffat for identifying the problem and the fix.

    • [krejzi] - Fixed Ncurses and Perl build with GCC 5. Thanks to Ken Moffat and Douglas R. Reno for providing the patches.

    • [krejzi] - Updated to GCC-5.1.0. Fixes #3779.

  • 2015-04-21

    • [bdubbs] - Update to man-pages-3.8.3. Fixes #3778.

  • 2015-04-16

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-4.0. Fixes #3775.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to tzdata-2015c. Fixes #3776.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to iproute2-4.0.0. Fixes #3777.

  • 2015-03-31

    • [bdubbs] - Adjust discussion of LFS envronment variable to be before first use.

    • [bdubbs] - Use --with-glibc-version=2.11 in gcc-pass1.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to dejagnu-1.5.3. Fixes #3773.

  • 2015-03-28

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-3.19.3. Fixes #3772.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to tzdata2015b. Fixes #3770.

  • 2015-03-20

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-3.19.2. Fixes #3768.

  • 2015-03-15

    • [bdubbs] - Update to tcl-core-8.6.4. Fixes #3766.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to util-linux-2.26.1. Fixes #3767.

    • [bdubbs] - Remove non-essential static libraries from the installation. Added a new section in Chapter 6 Introduction, suppressed many static libraries in different packages, and removed the remaining in the Cleaning Up section. Fixes #3751.

  • 2015-03-11

    • [bdubbs] - Update to intltool-0.51.0. Fixes #3764.

  • 2015-03-08

    • [bdubbs] - Update to linux-3.19.1. Fixes #3763.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to patch-2.7.5. Fixes #3762.

    • [bdubbs] - Change tcl to minimal tcl-core package. Fixes #3752.

  • 2015-03-07

    • [bdubbs] - Update to mpc-1.0.3. Fixes #3753.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to man-pages-3.8.1. Fixes #3754.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to xz-5.2.1. Fixes #3757.

    • [bdubbs] - Update to kmod-20. Fixes #3758.

  • 2015-03-06

    • [krejzi] - LFS-7.7-systemd released.

1.4. Resources

1.4.1. FAQ

If during the building of the LFS system you encounter any errors, have any questions, or think there is a typo in the book, please start by consulting the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that is located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/.

1.4.2. Mailing Lists

The linuxfromscratch.org server hosts a number of mailing lists used for the development of the LFS project. These lists include the main development and support lists, among others. If the FAQ does not solve the problem you are having, the next step would be to search the mailing lists at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/search.html.

For information on the different lists, how to subscribe, archive locations, and additional information, visit http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mail.html.

1.4.3. IRC

Several members of the LFS community offer assistance on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Before using this support, please make sure that your question is not already answered in the LFS FAQ or the mailing list archives. You can find the IRC network at irc.freenode.net. The support channel is named #LFS-support.

1.4.4. Mirror Sites

The LFS project has a number of world-wide mirrors to make accessing the website and downloading the required packages more convenient. Please visit the LFS website at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/mirrors.html for a list of current mirrors.

1.4.5. Contact Information

Please direct all your questions and comments to one of the LFS mailing lists (see above).

1.5. Help

If an issue or a question is encountered while working through this book, please check the FAQ page at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/#generalfaq. Questions are often already answered there. If your question is not answered on this page, try to find the source of the problem. The following hint will give you some guidance for troubleshooting: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/errors.txt.

If you cannot find your problem listed in the FAQ, search the mailing lists at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/search.html.

We also have a wonderful LFS community that is willing to offer assistance through the mailing lists and IRC (see the Section 1.4, “Resources” section of this book). However, we get several support questions every day and many of them can be easily answered by going to the FAQ and by searching the mailing lists first. So, for us to offer the best assistance possible, you need to do some research on your own first. That allows us to focus on the more unusual support needs. If your searches do not produce a solution, please include all relevant information (mentioned below) in your request for help.

1.5.1. Things to Mention

Apart from a brief explanation of the problem being experienced, the essential things to include in any request for help are:

  • The version of the book being used (in this case 7.8-systemd)

  • The host distribution and version being used to create LFS

  • The output from the Section vii, Host System Requirements script

  • The package or section the problem was encountered in

  • The exact error message or symptom being received

  • Note whether you have deviated from the book at all

Note

Deviating from this book does not mean that we will not help you. After all, LFS is about personal preference. Being upfront about any changes to the established procedure helps us evaluate and determine possible causes of your problem.

1.5.2. Configure Script Problems

If something goes wrong while running the configure script, review the config.log file. This file may contain errors encountered during configure which were not printed to the screen. Include the relevant lines if you need to ask for help.

1.5.3. Compilation Problems

Both the screen output and the contents of various files are useful in determining the cause of compilation problems. The screen output from the configure script and the make run can be helpful. It is not necessary to include the entire output, but do include enough of the relevant information. Below is an example of the type of information to include from the screen output from make:

gcc -DALIASPATH=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale:.\"
-DLOCALEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale\"
-DLIBDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.
-g -O2 -c getopt1.c
gcc -g -O2 -static -o make ar.o arscan.o commands.o dir.o
expand.o file.o function.o getopt.o implicit.o job.o main.o
misc.o read.o remake.o rule.o signame.o variable.o vpath.o
default.o remote-stub.o version.o opt1.o
-lutil job.o: In function `load_too_high':
/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1/job.c:1565: undefined reference
to `getloadavg'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [make] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2

In this case, many people would just include the bottom section:

make [2]: *** [make] Error 1

This is not enough information to properly diagnose the problem because it only notes that something went wrong, not what went wrong. The entire section, as in the example above, is what should be saved because it includes the command that was executed and the associated error message(s).

An excellent article about asking for help on the Internet is available online at http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html. Read and follow the hints in this document to increase the likelihood of getting the help you need.

Part II. Preparing for the Build

Chapter 2. Preparing a New Partition

2.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the partition which will host the LFS system is prepared. We will create the partition itself, create a file system on it, and mount it.

2.2. Creating a New Partition

Like most other operating systems, LFS is usually installed on a dedicated partition. The recommended approach to building an LFS system is to use an available empty partition or, if you have enough unpartitioned space, to create one.

A minimal system requires a partition of around 4 gigabytes (GB). This is enough to store all the source tarballs and compile the packages. However, if the LFS system is intended to be the primary Linux system, additional software will probably be installed which will require additional space. A 10 GB partition is a reasonable size to provide for growth. The LFS system itself will not take up this much room. A large portion of this requirement is to provide sufficient free temporary storage. Compiling packages can require a lot of disk space which will be reclaimed after the package is installed.

Because there is not always enough Random Access Memory (RAM) available for compilation processes, it is a good idea to use a small disk partition as swap space. This is used by the kernel to store seldom-used data and leave more memory available for active processes. The swap partition for an LFS system can be the same as the one used by the host system, in which case it is not necessary to create another one.

Start a disk partitioning program such as cfdisk or fdisk with a command line option naming the hard disk on which the new partition will be created—for example /dev/sda for the primary Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) disk. Create a Linux native partition and a swap partition, if needed. Please refer to cfdisk(8) or fdisk(8) if you do not yet know how to use the programs.

Note

For experienced users, other partitioning schemes are possible. The new LFS system can be on a software RAID array or an LVM logical volume. However, some of these options require an initramfs, which is an advanced topic. These partitioning methodologies are not recommended for first time LFS users.

Remember the designation of the new partition (e.g., sda5). This book will refer to this as the LFS partition. Also remember the designation of the swap partition. These names will be needed later for the /etc/fstab file.

2.2.1. Other Partition Issues

Requests for advice on system partitioning are often posted on the LFS mailing lists. This is a highly subjective topic. The default for most distributions is to use the entire drive with the exception of one small swap partition. This is not optimal for LFS for several reasons. It reduces flexibility, makes sharing of data across multiple distributions or LFS builds more difficult, makes backups more time consuming, and can waste disk space through inefficient allocation of file system structures.

2.2.1.1. The Root Partition

A root LFS partition (not to be confused with the /root directory) of ten gigabytes is a good compromise for most systems. It provides enough space to build LFS and most of BLFS, but is small enough so that multiple partitions can be easily created for experimentation.

2.2.1.2. The Swap Partition

Most distributions automatically create a swap partition. Generally the recommended size of the swap partition is about twice the amount of physical RAM, however this is rarely needed. If disk space is limited, hold the swap partition to two gigabytes and monitor the amount of disk swapping.

Swapping is never good. Generally you can tell if a system is swapping by just listening to disk activity and observing how the system reacts to commands. The first reaction to swapping should be to check for an unreasonable command such as trying to edit a five gigabyte file. If swapping becomes a normal occurrence, the best solution is to purchase more RAM for your system.

2.2.1.3. Convenience Partitions

There are several other partitions that are not required, but should be considered when designing a disk layout. The following list is not comprehensive, but is meant as a guide.

  • /boot – Highly recommended. Use this partition to store kernels and other booting information. To minimize potential boot problems with larger disks, make this the first physical partition on your first disk drive. A partition size of 100 megabytes is quite adequate.

  • /home – Highly recommended. Share your home directory and user customization across multiple distributions or LFS builds. The size is generally fairly large and depends on available disk space.

  • /usr – A separate /usr partition is generally used if providing a server for a thin client or diskless workstation. It is normally not needed for LFS. A size of five gigabytes will handle most installations.

  • /opt – This directory is most useful for BLFS where multiple installations of large packages like Gnome or KDE can be installed without embedding the files in the /usr hierarchy. If used, 5 to 10 gigabytes is generally adequate.

  • /tmp – A separate /tmp directory is rare, but useful if configuring a thin client. This partition, if used, will usually not need to exceed a couple of gigabytes.

  • /usr/src – This partition is very useful for providing a location to store BLFS source files and share them across LFS builds. It can also be used as a location for building BLFS packages. A reasonably large partition of 30-50 gigabytes allows plenty of room.

Any separate partition that you want automatically mounted upon boot needs to be specified in the /etc/fstab. Details about how to specify partitions will be discussed in Section 8.2, “Creating the /etc/fstab File”.

2.3. Creating a File System on the Partition

Now that a blank partition has been set up, the file system can be created. LFS can use any file system recognized by the Linux kernel, but the most common types are ext3 and ext4. The choice of file system can be complex and depends on the characteristics of the files and the size of the partition. For example:

ext2

is suitable for small partitions that are updated infrequently such as /boot.

ext3

is an upgrade to ext2 that includes a journal to help recover the partition's status in the case of an unclean shutdown. It is commonly used as a general purpose file system.

ext4

is the latest version of the ext file system family of partition types. It provides several new capabilities including nano-second timestamps, creation and use of very large files (16 TB), and speed improvements.

Other file sytems, including FAT32, NTFS, ReiserFS, JFS, and XFS are useful for specialized purposes. More information about these file systems can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems.

LFS assumes that the root file system (/) is of type ext4. To create an ext4 file system on the LFS partition, run the following:

mkfs -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx>

If you are using an existing swap partition, there is no need to format it. If a new swap partition was created, it will need to be initialized with this command:

mkswap /dev/<yyy>

Replace <yyy> with the name of the swap partition.

2.4. Setting The $LFS Variable

Throughout this book, the environment variable LFS will be used several times. You should ensure that this variable is always defined throughout the LFS build process. It should be set to the name of the directory where you will be building your LFS system - we will use /mnt/lfs as an example, but the directory choice is up to you. If you are building LFS on a separate partition, this directory will be the mount point for the partition. Choose a directory location and set the variable with the following command:

export LFS=/mnt/lfs

Having this variable set is beneficial in that commands such as mkdir -v $LFS/tools can be typed literally. The shell will automatically replace $LFS with /mnt/lfs (or whatever the variable was set to) when it processes the command line.

Do not forget to check that LFS is set whenever you leave and reenter the current working environment (such as when doing a su to root or another user). Check that the LFS variable is set up properly with:

echo $LFS

Make sure the output shows the path to your LFS system's build location, which is /mnt/lfs if the provided example was followed. If the output is incorrect, use the command given earlier on this page to set $LFS to the correct directory name.

Note

One way to ensure that the LFS variable is always set is to edit the .bash_profile file in both your personal home directory and in /root/.bash_profile and enter the export command above.

2.5. Mounting the New Partition

Now that a file system has been created, the partition needs to be made accessible. In order to do this, the partition needs to be mounted at a chosen mount point. For the purposes of this book, it is assumed that the file system is mounted under the directory specified by the LFS envronment varibale as described in the previous section.

Create the mount point and mount the LFS file system by running:

mkdir -pv $LFS
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx> $LFS

Replace <xxx> with the designation of the LFS partition.

If using multiple partitions for LFS (e.g., one for / and another for /usr), mount them using:

mkdir -pv $LFS
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<xxx> $LFS
mkdir -v $LFS/usr
mount -v -t ext4 /dev/<yyy> $LFS/usr

Replace <xxx> and <yyy> with the appropriate partition names.

Ensure that this new partition is not mounted with permissions that are too restrictive (such as the nosuid or nodev options). Run the mount command without any parameters to see what options are set for the mounted LFS partition. If nosuid and/or nodev are set, the partition will need to be remounted.

If you are using a swap partition, ensure that it is enabled using the swapon command:

/sbin/swapon -v /dev/<zzz>

Replace <zzz> with the name of the swap partition.

Now that there is an established place to work, it is time to download the packages.

Chapter 3. Packages and Patches

3.1. Introduction

This chapter includes a list of packages that need to be downloaded in order to build a basic Linux system. The listed version numbers correspond to versions of the software that are known to work, and this book is based on their use. We highly recommend against using newer versions because the build commands for one version may not work with a newer version. The newest package versions may also have problems that require work-arounds. These work-arounds will be developed and stabilized in the development version of the book.

Download locations may not always be accessible. If a download location has changed since this book was published, Google (http://www.google.com/) provides a useful search engine for most packages. If this search is unsuccessful, try one of the alternative means of downloading discussed at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/packages.html#packages.

Downloaded packages and patches will need to be stored somewhere that is conveniently available throughout the entire build. A working directory is also required to unpack the sources and build them. $LFS/sources can be used both as the place to store the tarballs and patches and as a working directory. By using this directory, the required elements will be located on the LFS partition and will be available during all stages of the building process.

To create this directory, execute the following command, as user root, before starting the download session:

mkdir -v $LFS/sources

Make this directory writable and sticky. Sticky means that even if multiple users have write permission on a directory, only the owner of a file can delete the file within a sticky directory. The following command will enable the write and sticky modes:

chmod -v a+wt $LFS/sources

An easy way to download all of the packages and patches is by using wget-list as an input to wget. For example:

wget --input-file=wget-list --continue --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources

Additionally, starting with LFS-7.0, there is a separate file, md5sums, which can be used to verify that all the correct packages are available before proceeding. Place that file in $LFS/sources and run:

pushd $LFS/sources
md5sum -c md5sums
popd

3.2. All Packages

Download or otherwise obtain the following packages:

Acl (2.2.52) - 380 KB:

Download: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/acl/acl-2.2.52.src.tar.gz

MD5 sum: a61415312426e9c2212bd7dc7929abda

Attr (2.4.47) - 336 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/attr/

Download: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/attr/attr-2.4.47.src.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 84f58dec00b60f2dc8fd1c9709291cc7

Autoconf (2.69) - 1,186 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.69.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 50f97f4159805e374639a73e2636f22e

Automake (1.15) - 1,462 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.15.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 9a1ddb0e053474d9d1105cfe39b0c48d

Bash (4.3.30) - 7,7791 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-4.3.30.tar.gz

MD5 sum: a27b3ee9be83bd3ba448c0ff52b28447

Bc (1.06.95) - 288 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/bc/

Download: http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/bc/bc-1.06.95.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 5126a721b73f97d715bb72c13c889035

Binutils (2.25.1) - 23,598 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.25.1.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: ac493a78de4fee895961d025b7905be4

Bison (3.0.4) - 1,928 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.0.4.tar.xz

MD5 sum: c342201de104cc9ce0a21e0ad10d4021

Bzip2 (1.0.6) - 764 KB:

Home page: http://www.bzip.org/

Download: http://www.bzip.org/1.0.6/bzip2-1.0.6.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 00b516f4704d4a7cb50a1d97e6e8e15b

Check (0.10.0) - 752 KB:

Home page: http://check.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/check/files/check/0.10.0/check-0.10.0.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 53c5e5c77d090e103a17f3ed7fd7d8b8

Coreutils (8.24) - 5,518 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-8.24.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 40efdbce865d2458d8da0a9dcee7c16c

D-Bus (1.8.20) - 1,828 KB:

Home page: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus

Download: http://dbus.freedesktop.org/releases/dbus/dbus-1.8.20.tar.gz

MD5 sum: b49890bbabedab3a1c3f4f73c7ff8b2b

DejaGNU (1.5.3) - 584 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/dejagnu/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/dejagnu/dejagnu-1.5.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 5bda2cdb1af51a80aecce58d6e42bd2f

Diffutils (3.3) - 1,170 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/diffutils-3.3.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 99180208ec2a82ce71f55b0d7389f1b3

E2fsprogs (1.42.13) - 6,360 KB:

Home page: http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs/v1.42.13/e2fsprogs-1.42.13.tar.gz

MD5 sum: bc759fc62666786f5436e2075beb3265

Expat (2.1.0) - 552 KB:

Home page: http://expat.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.1.0.tar.gz

MD5 sum: dd7dab7a5fea97d2a6a43f511449b7cd

Expect (5.45) - 614 KB:

Home page: http://expect.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/expect/expect5.45.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 44e1a4f4c877e9ddc5a542dfa7ecc92b

File (5.24) - 721 KB:

Home page: http://www.darwinsys.com/file/

Download: ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/file-5.24.tar.gz

MD5 sum: ec161b5a0d2aef147fb046e5630b1408

Note

File (5.24) may no longer be available at the listed location. The site administrators of the master download location occasionally remove older versions when new ones are released. An alternative download location that may have the correct version available can also be found at: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/download.html#ftp.

Findutils (4.4.2) - 2,100 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/findutils/findutils-4.4.2.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 351cc4adb07d54877fa15f75fb77d39f

Flex (2.5.39) - 1,316 KB:

Home page: http://flex.sourceforge.net

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/flex/flex-2.5.39.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 477679c37ff8b28248a9b05f1da29a82

Gawk (4.1.3) - 2,258 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-4.1.3.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 97f8f44149ea9b9e94be97f68988be87

GCC (5.2.0) - 92,990 KB:

Home page: http://gcc.gnu.org/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-5.2.0/gcc-5.2.0.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: a51bcfeb3da7dd4c623e27207ed43467

GDBM (1.11) - 796 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gdbm/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdbm/gdbm-1.11.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 72c832680cf0999caedbe5b265c8c1bd

Gettext (0.19.5.1) - 6,713 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/gettext-0.19.5.1.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 9b7c37e410df4bd1bf854e8c897cf937

Glibc (2.22) - 12,666 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.22.tar.xz

MD5 sum: e51e02bf552a0a1fbbdc948fb2f5e83c

GMP (6.0.0a) - 1,860 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gmp/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu//gmp/gmp-6.0.0a.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 1e6da4e434553d2811437aa42c7f7c76

Gperf (3.0.4) - 960 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gperf/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gperf/gperf-3.0.4.tar.gz

MD5 sum: c1f1db32fb6598d6a93e6e88796a8632

Grep (2.21) - 1,232 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/grep/grep-2.21.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 43c48064d6409862b8a850db83c8038a

Groff (1.22.3) - 4,091 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.22.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: cc825fa64bc7306a885f2fb2268d3ec5

GRUB (2.02~beta2) - 5,663 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

Download: http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-2.02~beta2.tar.xz

MD5 sum: be62932eade308a364ea4bbc91295930

Gzip (1.6) - 712 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/gzip-1.6.tar.xz

MD5 sum: da981f86677d58a106496e68de6f8995

Iana-Etc (2.30) - 201 KB:

Home page: http://freecode.com/projects/iana-etc

Download: http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/LFS/lfs-packages/conglomeration/iana-etc/iana-etc-2.30.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 3ba3afb1d1b261383d247f46cb135ee8

Inetutils (1.9.4) - 1,333 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/inetutils/inetutils-1.9.4.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 87fef1fa3f603aef11c41dcc097af75e

Intltool (0.51.0) - 159 KB:

Home page: http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/intltool

Download: http://launchpad.net/intltool/trunk/0.51.0/+download/intltool-0.51.0.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 12e517cac2b57a0121cda351570f1e63

IPRoute2 (4.2.0) - 485 KB:

Home page: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/iproute2-4.2.0.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 51c54cc3245eff451154938fbc0f64f5

Kbd (2.0.3) - 1,013 KB:

Home page: http://ftp.altlinux.org/pub/people/legion/kbd

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kbd/kbd-2.0.3.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 231b46e7142eb41ea3ae06d2ded3c208

Kmod (21) - 436 KB:

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod-21.tar.xz

MD5 sum: ee246fab2e1cba9fbdcad6a86ec31531

Less (458) - 308 KB:

Home page: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/

Download: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/less-458.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 935b38aa2e73c888c210dedf8fd94f49

Libcap (2.24) - 64 KB:

Home page: https://sites.google.com/site/fullycapable/

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/linux-privs/libcap2/libcap-2.24.tar.xz

MD5 sum: d43ab9f680435a7fff35b4ace8d45b80

Libpipeline (1.4.1) - 787 KB:

Home page: http://libpipeline.nongnu.org/

Download: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/libpipeline/libpipeline-1.4.1.tar.gz

MD5 sum: e54590ec68d6c1239f67b5b44e92022c

Libtool (2.4.6) - 951 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/libtool-2.4.6.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 1bfb9b923f2c1339b4d2ce1807064aa5

Linux (4.2) - 81,083 KB:

Home page: http://www.kernel.org/

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-4.2.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 3d5ea06d767e2f35c999eeadafc76523

Note

The Linux kernel is updated relatively often, many times due to discoveries of security vulnerabilities. The latest available 4.2.x kernel version should be used, unless the errata page says otherwise.

For users with limited speed or expensive bandwidth who wish to update the Linux kernel, a baseline version of the package and patches can be downloaded separately. This may save some time or cost for a subsequent patch level upgrade within a minor release.

M4 (1.4.17) - 1,122 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.17.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 12a3c829301a4fd6586a57d3fcf196dc

Make (4.1) - 1,297 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/make-4.1.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 57a7a224a822f94789a587ccbcedff69

Man-DB (2.7.2) - 1,467 KB:

Home page: http://www.nongnu.org/man-db/

Download: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/man-db/man-db-2.7.2.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 4b9480e4f1da04abb22ae7a9345ace6b

Man-pages (4.02) - 1,371 KB:

Home page: http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/man-pages-4.02.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 6c5692af39eb5fe468a8bd1f110b0edd

MPC (1.0.3) - 655 KB:

Home page: http://www.multiprecision.org/

Download: http://www.multiprecision.org/mpc/download/mpc-1.0.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: d6a1d5f8ddea3abd2cc3e98f58352d26

MPFR (3.1.3) - 1,087 KB:

Home page: http://www.mpfr.org/

Download: http://www.mpfr.org/mpfr-3.1.3/mpfr-3.1.3.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 6969398cd2fbc56a6af570b5273c56a9

Ncurses (6.0) - 3,059 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu//ncurses/ncurses-6.0.tar.gz

MD5 sum: ee13d052e1ead260d7c28071f46eefb1

Patch (2.7.5) - 711 KB:

Home page: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/patch/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/patch/patch-2.7.5.tar.xz

MD5 sum: e3da7940431633fb65a01b91d3b7a27a

Perl (5.22.0) - 13,488 KB:

Home page: http://www.perl.org/

Download: http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.22.0.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: f67b152160431b3180fb766bdc2d02e2

Pkg-config (0.28) - 1,892 KB:

Home page: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config

Download: http://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.28.tar.gz

MD5 sum: aa3c86e67551adc3ac865160e34a2a0d

Procps (3.3.11) - 797 KB:

Home page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/procps-ng

Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/procps-ng/files/Production/procps-ng-3.3.11.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 6cc5b94c1c5b8cbc89ad345a7b522f74

Psmisc (22.21) - 447 KB:

Home page: http://psmisc.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/psmisc/psmisc/psmisc-22.21.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 935c0fd6eb208288262b385fa656f1bf

Readline (6.3) - 2,411 KB:

Home page: http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/readline-6.3.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 33c8fb279e981274f485fd91da77e94a

Sed (4.2.2) - 1,035 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/sed/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.2.2.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 7ffe1c7cdc3233e1e0c4b502df253974

Shadow (4.2.1) - 1,558 KB:

Download: http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/releases/shadow-4.2.1.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 2bfafe7d4962682d31b5eba65dba4fc8

Systemd (224) - 3,516 KB:

Home page: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/

Download: http://anduin.linuxfromscratch.org/sources/other/systemd/systemd-224.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 814d12807f2449fb12dbb6d33a51cce8

Tar (1.28) - 1,921 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.28.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 49b6306167724fe48f419a33a5beb857

Tcl (8.6.4) - 5,677 KB:

Home page: http://tcl.sourceforge.net/

Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcl/files/Tcl/8.6.4/tcl-core8.6.4-src.tar.gz

MD5 sum: 8b8c9d85469d8dbe32e51117b8ef11e3

Texinfo (6.0) - 3,991 KB:

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/

Download: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-6.0.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 02818e62a5b8ae0213a7ff572991bb50

Time Zone Data (2015f) - 292 KB:

Home page: http://www.iana.org/time-zones

Download: http://www.iana.org/time-zones/repository/releases/tzdata2015f.tar.gz

MD5 sum: e3b82732d20e973e48af1c6f13df9a1d

Util-linux (2.27) - 3,774 KB:

Home page: http://freecode.com/projects/util-linux

Download: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/v2.27/util-linux-2.27.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 5b06bbda9309624ee7add15bc8d8ca22

Vim (7.4) - 9,632 KB:

Home page: http://www.vim.org

Download: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unix/vim-7.4.tar.bz2

MD5 sum: 607e135c559be642f210094ad023dc65

XML::Parser (2.44) - 232 KB:

Home page: https://github.com/chorny/XML-Parser

Download: http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TO/TODDR/XML-Parser-2.44.tar.gz

MD5 sum: af4813fe3952362451201ced6fbce379

Xz Utils (5.2.1) - 987 KB:

Home page: http://tukaani.org/xz

Download: http://tukaani.org/xz/xz-5.2.1.tar.xz

MD5 sum: b5e2dd95dc8498cea5354377ed89aa65

Zlib (1.2.8) - 441 KB:

Home page: http://www.zlib.net/

Download: http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.8.tar.xz

MD5 sum: 28f1205d8dd2001f26fec1e8c2cebe37

Total size of these packages: about 399 MB

3.3. Needed Patches

In addition to the packages, several patches are also required. These patches correct any mistakes in the packages that should be fixed by the maintainer. The patches also make small modifications to make the packages easier to work with. The following patches will be needed to build an LFS system:

Bash Upstream Fixes Patch - 13 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/bash-4.3.30-upstream_fixes-2.patch

MD5 sum: fd2d7ca532f9ea53d678a6bc79354681

Bc Memory Leak Patch - 1.4 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/bc-1.06.95-memory_leak-1.patch

MD5 sum: 877e81fba316fe487ec23501059d54b8

Bzip2 Documentation Patch - 1.6 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/bzip2-1.0.6-install_docs-1.patch

MD5 sum: 6a5ac7e89b791aae556de0f745916f7f

Coreutils Internationalization Fixes Patch - 141 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/coreutils-8.24-i18n-1.patch

MD5 sum: c6a5ccda1ca61de7c93b09d27a9a26d5

Glibc FHS Patch - 2.8 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/glibc-2.22-fhs-1.patch

MD5 sum: 9a5997c3452909b1769918c759eff8a2

Glibc i386 Patch - 1.9 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/glibc-2.22-upstream_i386_fix-1.patch

MD5 sum: cfb3cb46074a833ac5729be79e4f2592

Kbd Backspace/Delete Fix Patch - 12 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/kbd-2.0.3-backspace-1.patch

MD5 sum: f75cca16a38da6caa7d52151f7136895

MPFR Upstream Fixes Patch - 81 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/mpfr-3.1.3-upstream_fixes-1.patch

MD5 sum: 2044abd90351861311c9aafcfb0ce864

Readline Upstream Fixes Patch - 8 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/readline-6.3-upstream_fixes-3.patch

MD5 sum: 6b0d9f4e79319d56a7fee9b35e5cfd1b

Systemd Compat Patch - 12 KB:

Download: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/lfs/systemd/systemd-224-compat-3.patch

MD5 sum: 5ef7a63335bd572dac54ac460caaebeb

Total size of these patches: about 274.7 KB

In addition to the above required patches, there exist a number of optional patches created by the LFS community. These optional patches solve minor problems or enable functionality that is not enabled by default. Feel free to peruse the patches database located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/patches/downloads/ and acquire any additional patches to suit your system needs.

Chapter 4. Final Preparations

4.1. Introduction

In this chapter, we will perform a few additional tasks to prepare for building the temporary system. We will create a directory in $LFS for the installation of the temporary tools, add an unprivileged user to reduce risk, and create an appropriate build environment for that user. We will also explain the unit of time we use to measure how long LFS packages take to build, or SBUs, and give some information about package test suites.

4.2. Creating the $LFS/tools Directory

All programs compiled in Chapter 5 will be installed under $LFS/tools to keep them separate from the programs compiled in Chapter 6. The programs compiled here are temporary tools and will not be a part of the final LFS system. By keeping these programs in a separate directory, they can easily be discarded later after their use. This also prevents these programs from ending up in the host production directories (easy to do by accident in Chapter 5).

Create the required directory by running the following as root:

mkdir -v $LFS/tools

The next step is to create a /tools symlink on the host system. This will point to the newly-created directory on the LFS partition. Run this command as root as well:

ln -sv $LFS/tools /

Note

The above command is correct. The ln command has a few syntactic variations, so be sure to check info coreutils ln and ln(1) before reporting what you may think is an error.

The created symlink enables the toolchain to be compiled so that it always refers to /tools, meaning that the compiler, assembler, and linker will work both in Chapter 5 (when we are still using some tools from the host) and in the next (when we are chrooted to the LFS partition).

4.3. Adding the LFS User

When logged in as user root, making a single mistake can damage or destroy a system. Therefore, we recommend building the packages in this chapter as an unprivileged user. You could use your own user name, but to make it easier to set up a clean working environment, create a new user called lfs as a member of a new group (also named lfs) and use this user during the installation process. As root, issue the following commands to add the new user:

groupadd lfs
useradd -s /bin/bash -g lfs -m -k /dev/null lfs

The meaning of the command line options:

-s /bin/bash

This makes bash the default shell for user lfs.

-g lfs

This option adds user lfs to group lfs.

-m

This creates a home directory for lfs.

-k /dev/null

This parameter prevents possible copying of files from a skeleton directory (default is /etc/skel) by changing the input location to the special null device.

lfs

This is the actual name for the created group and user.

To log in as lfs (as opposed to switching to user lfs when logged in as root, which does not require the lfs user to have a password), give lfs a password:

passwd lfs

Grant lfs full access to $LFS/tools by making lfs the directory owner:

chown -v lfs $LFS/tools

If a separate working directory was created as suggested, give user lfs ownership of this directory:

chown -v lfs $LFS/sources

Next, login as user lfs. This can be done via a virtual console, through a display manager, or with the following substitute user command:

su - lfs

The - instructs su to start a login shell as opposed to a non-login shell. The difference between these two types of shells can be found in detail in bash(1) and info bash.

4.4. Setting Up the Environment

Set up a good working environment by creating two new startup files for the bash shell. While logged in as user lfs, issue the following command to create a new .bash_profile:

cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
exec env -i HOME=$HOME TERM=$TERM PS1='\u:\w\$ ' /bin/bash
EOF

When logged on as user lfs, the initial shell is usually a login shell which reads the /etc/profile of the host (probably containing some settings and environment variables) and then .bash_profile. The exec env -i.../bin/bash command in the .bash_profile file replaces the running shell with a new one with a completely empty environment, except for the HOME, TERM, and PS1 variables. This ensures that no unwanted and potentially hazardous environment variables from the host system leak into the build environment. The technique used here achieves the goal of ensuring a clean environment.

The new instance of the shell is a non-login shell, which does not read the /etc/profile or .bash_profile files, but rather reads the .bashrc file instead. Create the .bashrc file now:

cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
set +h
umask 022
LFS=/mnt/lfs
LC_ALL=POSIX
LFS_TGT=$(uname -m)-lfs-linux-gnu
PATH=/tools/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
export LFS LC_ALL LFS_TGT PATH
EOF

The set +h command turns off bash's hash function. Hashing is ordinarily a useful feature—bash uses a hash table to remember the full path of executable files to avoid searching the PATH time and again to find the same executable. However, the new tools should be used as soon as they are installed. By switching off the hash function, the shell will always search the PATH when a program is to be run. As such, the shell will find the newly compiled tools in $LFS/tools as soon as they are available without remembering a previous version of the same program in a different location.

Setting the user file-creation mask (umask) to 022 ensures that newly created files and directories are only writable by their owner, but are readable and executable by anyone (assuming default modes are used by the open(2) system call, new files will end up with permission mode 644 and directories with mode 755).

The LFS variable should be set to the chosen mount point.

The LC_ALL variable controls the localization of certain programs, making their messages follow the conventions of a specified country. Setting LC_ALL to POSIX or C (the two are equivalent) ensures that everything will work as expected in the chroot environment.

The LFS_TGT variable sets a non-default, but compatible machine description for use when building our cross compiler and linker and when cross compiling our temporary toolchain. More information is contained in Section 5.2, “Toolchain Technical Notes”.

By putting /tools/bin ahead of the standard PATH, all the programs installed in Chapter 5 are picked up by the shell immediately after their installation. This, combined with turning off hashing, limits the risk that old programs are used from the host when the same programs are available in the chapter 5 environment.

Finally, to have the environment fully prepared for building the temporary tools, source the just-created user profile:

source ~/.bash_profile

4.5. About SBUs

Many people would like to know beforehand approximately how long it takes to compile and install each package. Because Linux From Scratch can be built on many different systems, it is impossible to provide accurate time estimates. The biggest package (Glibc) will take approximately 20 minutes on the fastest systems, but could take up to three days on slower systems! Instead of providing actual times, the Standard Build Unit (SBU) measure will be used instead.

The SBU measure works as follows. The first package to be compiled from this book is Binutils in Chapter 5. The time it takes to compile this package is what will be referred to as the Standard Build Unit or SBU. All other compile times will be expressed relative to this time.

For example, consider a package whose compilation time is 4.5 SBUs. This means that if a system took 10 minutes to compile and install the first pass of Binutils, it will take approximately 45 minutes to build this example package. Fortunately, most build times are shorter than the one for Binutils.

In general, SBUs are not entirely accurate because they depend on many factors, including the host system's version of GCC. They are provided here to give an estimate of how long it might take to install a package, but the numbers can vary by as much as dozens of minutes in some cases.

Note

For many modern systems with multiple processors (or cores) the compilation time for a package can be reduced by performing a "parallel make" by either setting an environment variable or telling the make program how many processors are available. For instance, a Core2Duo can support two simultaneous processes with:

export MAKEFLAGS='-j 2'

or just building with:

make -j2

When multiple processors are used in this way, the SBU units in the book will vary even more than they normally would. In some cases, the make step will simply fail. Analyzing the output of the build process will also be more difficult because the lines of different processes will be interleaved. If you run into a problem with a build step, revert back to a single processor build to properly analyze the error messages.

4.6. About the Test Suites

Most packages provide a test suite. Running the test suite for a newly built package is a good idea because it can provide a sanity check indicating that everything compiled correctly. A test suite that passes its set of checks usually proves that the package is functioning as the developer intended. It does not, however, guarantee that the package is totally bug free.

Some test suites are more important than others. For example, the test suites for the core toolchain packages—GCC, Binutils, and Glibc—are of the utmost importance due to their central role in a properly functioning system. The test suites for GCC and Glibc can take a very long time to complete, especially on slower hardware, but are strongly recommended.

Note

Experience has shown that there is little to be gained from running the test suites in Chapter 5. There can be no escaping the fact that the host system always exerts some influence on the tests in that chapter, often causing inexplicable failures. Because the tools built in Chapter 5 are temporary and eventually discarded, we do not recommend running the test suites in Chapter 5 for the average reader. The instructions for running those test suites are provided for the benefit of testers and developers, but they are strictly optional.

A common issue with running the test suites for Binutils and GCC is running out of pseudo terminals (PTYs). This can result in a high number of failing tests. This may happen for several reasons, but the most likely cause is that the host system does not have the devpts file system set up correctly. This issue is discussed in greater detail at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html#no-ptys.

Sometimes package test suites will fail, but for reasons which the developers are aware of and have deemed non-critical. Consult the logs located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/build-logs/systemd/ to verify whether or not these failures are expected. This site is valid for all tests throughout this book.

Chapter 5. Constructing a Temporary System

5.1. Introduction

This chapter shows how to build a minimal Linux system. This system will contain just enough tools to start constructing the final LFS system in Chapter 6 and allow a working environment with more user convenience than a minimum environment would.

There are two steps in building this minimal system. The first step is to build a new and host-independent toolchain (compiler, assembler, linker, libraries, and a few useful utilities). The second step uses this toolchain to build the other essential tools.

The files compiled in this chapter will be installed under the $LFS/tools directory to keep them separate from the files installed in the next chapter and the host production directories. Since the packages compiled here are temporary, we do not want them to pollute the soon-to-be LFS system.

5.2. Toolchain Technical Notes

This section explains some of the rationale and technical details behind the overall build method. It is not essential to immediately understand everything in this section. Most of this information will be clearer after performing an actual build. This section can be referred to at any time during the process.

The overall goal of Chapter 5 is to produce a temporary area that contains a known-good set of tools that can be isolated from the host system. By using chroot, the commands in the remaining chapters will be contained within that environment, ensuring a clean, trouble-free build of the target LFS system. The build process has been designed to minimize the risks for new readers and to provide the most educational value at the same time.

Note

Before continuing, be aware of the name of the working platform, often referred to as the target triplet. A simple way to determine the name of the target triplet is to run the config.guess script that comes with the source for many packages. Unpack the Binutils sources and run the script: ./config.guess and note the output. For example, for a modern 32-bit Intel processor the output will likely be i686-pc-linux-gnu.

Also be aware of the name of the platform's dynamic linker, often referred to as the dynamic loader (not to be confused with the standard linker ld that is part of Binutils). The dynamic linker provided by Glibc finds and loads the shared libraries needed by a program, prepares the program to run, and then runs it. The name of the dynamic linker for a 32-bit Intel machine will be ld-linux.so.2. A sure-fire way to determine the name of the dynamic linker is to inspect a random binary from the host system by running: readelf -l <name of binary> | grep interpreter and noting the output. The authoritative reference covering all platforms is in the shlib-versions file in the root of the Glibc source tree.

Some key technical points of how the Chapter 5 build method works:

  • Slightly adjusting the name of the working platform, by changing the "vendor" field target triplet by way of the LFS_TGT variable, ensures that the first build of Binutils and GCC produces a compatible cross-linker and cross-compiler. Instead of producing binaries for another architecture, the cross-linker and cross-compiler will produce binaries compatible with the current hardware.

  • The temporary libraries are cross-compiled. Because a cross-compiler by its nature cannot rely on anything from its host system, this method removes potential contamination of the target system by lessening the chance of headers or libraries from the host being incorporated into the new tools. Cross-compilation also allows for the possibility of building both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries on 64-bit capable hardware.

  • Careful manipulation of the GCC source tells the compiler which target dynamic linker will be used.

Binutils is installed first because the configure runs of both GCC and Glibc perform various feature tests on the assembler and linker to determine which software features to enable or disable. This is more important than one might first realize. An incorrectly configured GCC or Glibc can result in a subtly broken toolchain, where the impact of such breakage might not show up until near the end of the build of an entire distribution. A test suite failure will usually highlight this error before too much additional work is performed.

Binutils installs its assembler and linker in two locations, /tools/bin and /tools/$LFS_TGT/bin. The tools in one location are hard linked to the other. An important facet of the linker is its library search order. Detailed information can be obtained from ld by passing it the --verbose flag. For example, an ld --verbose | grep SEARCH will illustrate the current search paths and their order. It shows which files are linked by ld by compiling a dummy program and passing the --verbose switch to the linker. For example, gcc dummy.c -Wl,--verbose 2>&1 | grep succeeded will show all the files successfully opened during the linking.

The next package installed is GCC. An example of what can be seen during its run of configure is:

checking what assembler to use... /tools/i686-lfs-linux-gnu/bin/as
checking what linker to use... /tools/i686-lfs-linux-gnu/bin/ld

This is important for the reasons mentioned above. It also demonstrates that GCC's configure script does not search the PATH directories to find which tools to use. However, during the actual operation of gcc itself, the same search paths are not necessarily used. To find out which standard linker gcc will use, run: gcc -print-prog-name=ld.

Detailed information can be obtained from gcc by passing it the -v command line option while compiling a dummy program. For example, gcc -v dummy.c will show detailed information about the preprocessor, compilation, and assembly stages, including gcc's included search paths and their order.

Next installed are sanitized Linux API headers. These allow the standard C library (Glibc) to interface with features that the Linux kernel will provide.

The next package installed is Glibc. The most important considerations for building Glibc are the compiler, binary tools, and kernel headers. The compiler is generally not an issue since Glibc will always use the compiler relating to the --host parameter passed to its configure script, e.g. in our case, i686-lfs-linux-gnu-gcc. The binary tools and kernel headers can be a bit more complicated. Therefore, take no risks and use the available configure switches to enforce the correct selections. After the run of configure, check the contents of the config.make file in the glibc-build directory for all important details. Note the use of CC="i686-lfs-gnu-gcc" to control which binary tools are used and the use of the -nostdinc and -isystem flags to control the compiler's include search path. These items highlight an important aspect of the Glibc package—it is very self-sufficient in terms of its build machinery and generally does not rely on toolchain defaults.

During the second pass of Binutils, we are able to utilize the --with-lib-path configure switch to control ld's library search path.

For the second pass of GCC, its sources also need to be modified to tell GCC to use the new dynamic linker. Failure to do so will result in the GCC programs themselves having the name of the dynamic linker from the host system's /lib directory embedded into them, which would defeat the goal of getting away from the host. From this point onwards, the core toolchain is self-contained and self-hosted. The remainder of the Chapter 5 packages all build against the new Glibc in /tools.

Upon entering the chroot environment in Chapter 6, the first major package to be installed is Glibc, due to its self-sufficient nature mentioned above. Once this Glibc is installed into /usr, we will perform a quick changeover of the toolchain defaults, and then proceed in building the rest of the target LFS system.

5.3. General Compilation Instructions

When building packages there are several assumptions made within the instructions:

  • Several of the packages are patched before compilation, but only when the patch is needed to circumvent a problem. A patch is often needed in both this and the next chapter, but sometimes in only one or the other. Therefore, do not be concerned if instructions for a downloaded patch seem to be missing. Warning messages about offset or fuzz may also be encountered when applying a patch. Do not worry about these warnings, as the patch was still successfully applied.

  • During the compilation of most packages, there will be several warnings that scroll by on the screen. These are normal and can safely be ignored. These warnings are as they appear—warnings about deprecated, but not invalid, use of the C or C++ syntax. C standards change fairly often, and some packages still use the older standard. This is not a problem, but does prompt the warning.

  • Check one last time that the LFS environment variable is set up properly:

    echo $LFS
    

    Make sure the output shows the path to the LFS partition's mount point, which is /mnt/lfs, using our example.

  • Finally, two last important items must be emphasized:

    Important

    The build instructions assume that the Host System Requirements, including symbolic links, have been set properly:

    • bash is the shell in use.

    • sh is a symbolic link to bash.

    • /usr/bin/awk is a symbolic link to gawk.

    • /usr/bin/yacc is a symbolic link to bison or a small script that executes bison.

    Important

    To re-emphasize the build process:

    1. Place all the sources and patches in a directory that will be accessible from the chroot environment such as /mnt/lfs/sources/. Do not put sources in /mnt/lfs/tools/.

    2. Change to the sources directory.

    3. For each package:

      1. Using the tar program, extract the package to be built. In Chapter 5, ensure you are the lfs user when extracting the package.

      2. Change to the directory created when the package was extracted.

      3. Follow the book's instructions for building the package.

      4. Change back to the sources directory.

      5. Delete the extracted source directory and any <package>-build directories that were created in the build process unless instructed otherwise.

5.4. Binutils-2.25.1 - Pass 1

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

Approximate build time: 1 SBU
Required disk space: 489 MB

5.4.1. Installation of Cross Binutils

Note

Go back and re-read the notes in the previous section. Understanding the notes labeled important will save you a lot of problems later.

It is important that Binutils be the first package compiled because both Glibc and GCC perform various tests on the available linker and assembler to determine which of their own features to enable.

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Note

In order for the SBU values listed in the rest of the book to be of any use, measure the time it takes to build this package from the configuration, up to and including the first install. To achieve this easily, wrap the commands in a time command like this: time { ./configure ... && ... && make install; }.

Note

The approximate build SBU values and required disk space in Chapter 5 does not include test suite data.

Now prepare Binutils for compilation:

../binutils-2.25.1/configure     \
    --prefix=/tools            \
    --with-sysroot=$LFS        \
    --with-lib-path=/tools/lib \
    --target=$LFS_TGT          \
    --disable-nls              \
    --disable-werror

The meaning of the configure options:

--prefix=/tools

This tells the configure script to prepare to install the Binutils programs in the /tools directory.

--with-sysroot=$LFS

For cross compilation, this tells the build system to look in $LFS for the target system libraries as needed.

--with-lib-path=/tools/lib

This specifies which library path the linker should be configured to use.

--target=$LFS_TGT

Because the machine description in the LFS_TGT variable is slightly different than the value returned by the config.guess script, this switch will tell the configure script to adjust Binutil's build system for building a cross linker.

--disable-nls

This disables internationalization as i18n is not needed for the temporary tools.

--disable-werror

This prevents the build from stopping in the event that there are warnings from the host's compiler.

Continue with compiling the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. Ordinarily we would now run the test suite, but at this early stage the test suite framework (Tcl, Expect, and DejaGNU) is not yet in place. The benefits of running the tests at this point are minimal since the programs from this first pass will soon be replaced by those from the second.

If building on x86_64, create a symlink to ensure the sanity of the toolchain:

case $(uname -m) in
  x86_64) mkdir -v /tools/lib && ln -sv lib /tools/lib64 ;;
esac

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.13.2, “Contents of Binutils.”

5.5. GCC-5.2.0 - Pass 1

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

Approximate build time: 9.3 SBU
Required disk space: 2.5 GB

5.5.1. Installation of Cross GCC

GCC now requires the GMP, MPFR and MPC packages. As these packages may not be included in your host distribution, they will be built with GCC. Unpack each package into the GCC source directory and rename the resulting directories so the GCC build procedures will automatically use them:

Note

There are frequent misunderstandings about this chapter. The procedures are the same as every other chapter as explained earlier (Package build instructions). First extract the gcc tarball from the sources directory and then change to the directory created. Only then should you proceed with the instructions below.

tar -xf ../mpfr-3.1.3.tar.xz
mv -v mpfr-3.1.3 mpfr
tar -xf ../gmp-6.0.0a.tar.xz
mv -v gmp-6.0.0 gmp
tar -xf ../mpc-1.0.3.tar.gz
mv -v mpc-1.0.3 mpc

The following command will change the location of GCC's default dynamic linker to use the one installed in /tools. It also removes /usr/include from GCC's include search path. Issue:

for file in \
 $(find gcc/config -name linux64.h -o -name linux.h -o -name sysv4.h)
do
  cp -uv $file{,.orig}
  sed -e 's@/lib\(64\)\?\(32\)\?/ld@/tools&@g' \
      -e 's@/usr@/tools@g' $file.orig > $file
  echo '
#undef STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_1
#undef STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_2
#define STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_1 "/tools/lib/"
#define STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_2 ""' >> $file
  touch $file.orig
done

In case the above seems hard to follow, let's break it down a bit. First we find all the files under the gcc/config directory that are named either linux.h, linux64.h or sysv4.h. For each file found, we copy it to a file of the same name but with an added suffix of .orig. Then the first sed expression prepends /tools to every instance of /lib/ld, /lib64/ld or /lib32/ld, while the second one replaces hard-coded instances of /usr. Next, we add our define statements which alter the default startfile prefix to the end of the file. Note that the trailing / in /tools/lib/ is required. Finally, we use touch to update the timestamp on the copied files. When used in conjunction with cp -u, this prevents unexpected changes to the original files in case the commands are inadvertently run twice.

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC for compilation:

../gcc-5.2.0/configure                             \
    --target=$LFS_TGT                              \
    --prefix=/tools                                \
    --with-glibc-version=2.11                      \
    --with-sysroot=$LFS                            \
    --with-newlib                                  \
    --without-headers                              \
    --with-local-prefix=/tools                     \
    --with-native-system-header-dir=/tools/include \
    --disable-nls                                  \
    --disable-shared                               \
    --disable-multilib                             \
    --disable-decimal-float                        \
    --disable-threads                              \
    --disable-libatomic                            \
    --disable-libgomp                              \
    --disable-libquadmath                          \
    --disable-libssp                               \
    --disable-libvtv                               \
    --disable-libstdcxx                            \
    --enable-languages=c,c++

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-newlib

Since a working C library is not yet available, this ensures that the inhibit_libc constant is defined when building libgcc. This prevents the compiling of any code that requires libc support.

--without-headers

When creating a complete cross-compiler, GCC requires standard headers compatible with the target system. For our purposes these headers will not be needed. This switch prevents GCC from looking for them.

--with-local-prefix=/tools

The local prefix is the location in the system that GCC will search for locally installed include files. The default is /usr/local. Setting this to /tools helps keep the host location of /usr/local out of this GCC's search path.

--with-native-system-header-dir=/tools/include

By default GCC searches /usr/include for system headers. In conjunction with the sysroot switch, this would translate normally to $LFS/usr/include. However the headers that will be installed in the next two sections will go to $LFS/tools/include. This switch ensures that gcc will find them correctly. In the second pass of GCC, this same switch will ensure that no headers from the host system are found.

--disable-shared

This switch forces GCC to link its internal libraries statically. We do this to avoid possible issues with the host system.

--disable-decimal-float, --disable-threads, --disable-libatomic, --disable-libgomp, --disable-libquadmath, --disable-libssp, --disable-libvtv, --disable-libstdcxx

These switches disable support for the decimal floating point extension, threading, libatomic, libgomp, libquadmath, libssp, libvtv, and the C++ standard library respectively. These features will fail to compile when building a cross-compiler and are not necessary for the task of cross-compiling the temporary libc.

--disable-multilib

On x86_64, LFS does not yet support a multilib configuration. This switch is harmless for x86.

--enable-languages=c,c++

This option ensures that only the C and C++ compilers are built. These are the only languages needed now.

Compile GCC by running:

make

Compilation is now complete. At this point, the test suite would normally be run, but, as mentioned before, the test suite framework is not in place yet. The benefits of running the tests at this point are minimal since the programs from this first pass will soon be replaced.

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.17.2, “Contents of GCC.”

5.6. Linux-4.2 API Headers

The Linux API Headers (in linux-4.2.tar.xz) expose the kernel's API for use by Glibc.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 707 MB

5.6.1. Installation of Linux API Headers

The Linux kernel needs to expose an Application Programming Interface (API) for the system's C library (Glibc in LFS) to use. This is done by way of sanitizing various C header files that are shipped in the Linux kernel source tarball.

Make sure there are no stale files embedded in the package:

make mrproper

Now extract the user-visible kernel headers from the source. They are placed in an intermediate local directory and copied to the needed location because the extraction process removes any existing files in the target directory.

make INSTALL_HDR_PATH=dest headers_install
cp -rv dest/include/* /tools/include

Details on this package are located in Section 6.7.2, “Contents of Linux API Headers.”

5.7. Glibc-2.22

The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and closing files, reading and writing files, string handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and so on.

Approximate build time: 5.0 SBU
Required disk space: 656 MB

5.7.1. Installation of Glibc

First, fix a build problem that affects i386 systems:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.22-upstream_i386_fix-1.patch

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

Next, prepare Glibc for compilation:

../glibc-2.22/configure                             \
      --prefix=/tools                               \
      --host=$LFS_TGT                               \
      --build=$(../glibc-2.22/scripts/config.guess) \
      --disable-profile                             \
      --enable-kernel=2.6.32                        \
      --enable-obsolete-rpc                         \
      --with-headers=/tools/include                 \
      libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes                     \
      libc_cv_ctors_header=yes                      \
      libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes

The meaning of the configure options:

--host=$LFS_TGT, --build=$(../glibc-2.22/scripts/config.guess)

The combined effect of these switches is that Glibc's build system configures itself to cross-compile, using the cross-linker and cross-compiler in /tools.

--disable-profile

This builds the libraries without profiling information. Omit this option if profiling on the temporary tools is necessary.

--enable-kernel=2.6.32

This tells Glibc to compile the library with support for 2.6.32 and later Linux kernels. Workarounds for older kernels are not enabled.

--enable-obsolete-rpc

This installs NIS and RPC related headers that are not installed by default. They are required to build GCC and by several BLFS packages.

--with-headers=/tools/include

This tells Glibc to compile itself against the headers recently installed to the tools directory, so that it knows exactly what features the kernel has and can optimize itself accordingly.

libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes

The linker installed during Section 5.4, “Binutils-2.25.1 - Pass 1” was cross-compiled and as such cannot be used until Glibc has been installed. This means that the configure test for force-unwind support will fail, as it relies on a working linker. The libc_cv_forced_unwind=yes variable is passed in order to inform configure that force-unwind support is available without it having to run the test.

libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes

Simlarly, we pass libc_cv_c_cleanup=yes through to the configure script so that the test is skipped and C cleanup handling support is configured.

libc_cv_ctors_header=yes

Simlarly, we pass libc_cv_ctors_header=yes through to the configure script so that the test is skipped and gcc constructor support is configured.

During this stage the following warning might appear:

configure: WARNING:
*** These auxiliary programs are missing or
*** incompatible versions: msgfmt
*** some features will be disabled.
*** Check the INSTALL file for required versions.

The missing or incompatible msgfmt program is generally harmless. This msgfmt program is part of the Gettext package which the host distribution should provide.

Note

There have been reports that this package may fail when building as a "parallel make". If this occurs, rerun the make command with a "-j1" option.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Caution

At this point, it is imperative to stop and ensure that the basic functions (compiling and linking) of the new toolchain are working as expected. To perform a sanity check, run the following commands:

echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c
$LFS_TGT-gcc dummy.c
readelf -l a.out | grep ': /tools'

If everything is working correctly, there should be no errors, and the output of the last command will be of the form:

[Requesting program interpreter: /tools/lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Note that for 64-bit machines, the interpreter name will be /tools/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2.

If the output is not shown as above or there was no output at all, then something is wrong. Investigate and retrace the steps to find out where the problem is and correct it. This issue must be resolved before continuing on.

Once all is well, clean up the test files:

rm -v dummy.c a.out

Note

Building Binutils in the section after next will serve as an additional check that the toolchain has been built properly. If Binutils fails to build, it is an indication that something has gone wrong with the previous Binutils, GCC, or Glibc installations.

Details on this package are located in Section 6.9.3, “Contents of Glibc.”

5.8. Libstdc++-5.2.0

Libstdc++ is the standard C++ library. It is needed for the correct operation of the g++ compiler.

Approximate build time: 0.5 SBU
Required disk space: 850 MB

5.8.1. Installation of Target Libstdc++

Note

Libstdc++ is part of the GCC sources. You should first unpack the GCC tarball and change to the gcc-5.2.0 directory.

Create a directory for Libstdc++ and enter it:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare Libstdc++ for compilation:

../gcc-5.2.0/libstdc++-v3/configure \
    --host=$LFS_TGT                 \
    --prefix=/tools                 \
    --disable-multilib              \
    --disable-nls                   \
    --disable-libstdcxx-threads     \
    --disable-libstdcxx-pch         \
    --with-gxx-include-dir=/tools/$LFS_TGT/include/c++/5.2.0

The meaning of the configure options:

--host=...

Indicates to use the cross compiler we have just built instead of the one in /usr/bin.

--disable-libstdcxx-threads

Since we have not yet built the C threads library, the C++ one cannot be built either.

--disable-libstdcxx-pch

This switch prevents the installation of precompiled include files, which are not needed at this stage.

--with-gxx-include-dir=/tools/$LFS_TGT/include/c++/5.2.0

This is the location where the standard include files are searched by the C++ compiler. In a normal build, this information is automatically passed to the Libstdc++ configure options from the toplevel directory. In our case, this information must be explicitly given.

Compile libstdc++ by running:

make

Install the library:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.17.2, “Contents of GCC.”

5.9. Binutils-2.25.1 - Pass 2

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

Approximate build time: 1.1 SBU
Required disk space: 508 MB

5.9.1. Installation of Binutils

Create a separate build directory again:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Prepare Binutils for compilation:

CC=$LFS_TGT-gcc                \
AR=$LFS_TGT-ar                 \
RANLIB=$LFS_TGT-ranlib         \
../binutils-2.25.1/configure     \
    --prefix=/tools            \
    --disable-nls              \
    --disable-werror           \
    --with-lib-path=/tools/lib \
    --with-sysroot

The meaning of the new configure options:

CC=$LFS_TGT-gcc AR=$LFS_TGT-ar RANLIB=$LFS_TGT-ranlib

Because this is really a native build of Binutils, setting these variables ensures that the build system uses the cross-compiler and associated tools instead of the ones on the host system.

--with-lib-path=/tools/lib

This tells the configure script to specify the library search path during the compilation of Binutils, resulting in /tools/lib being passed to the linker. This prevents the linker from searching through library directories on the host.

--with-sysroot

The sysroot feature enables the linker to find shared objects which are required by other shared objects explicitly included on the linker's command line. Without this, some packages may not build successfully on some hosts.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

Now prepare the linker for the Re-adjusting phase in the next chapter:

make -C ld clean
make -C ld LIB_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib
cp -v ld/ld-new /tools/bin

The meaning of the make parameters:

-C ld clean

This tells the make program to remove all compiled files in the ld subdirectory.

-C ld LIB_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib

This option rebuilds everything in the ld subdirectory. Specifying the LIB_PATH Makefile variable on the command line allows us to override the default value of the temporary tools and point it to the proper final path. The value of this variable specifies the linker's default library search path. This preparation is used in the next chapter.

Details on this package are located in Section 6.13.2, “Contents of Binutils.”

5.10. GCC-5.2.0 - Pass 2

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

Approximate build time: 11.9 SBU
Required disk space: 2.8 GB

5.10.1. Installation of GCC

Our first build of GCC has installed a couple of internal system headers. Normally one of them, limits.h, will in turn include the corresponding system limits.h header, in this case, /tools/include/limits.h. However, at the time of the first build of gcc /tools/include/limits.h did not exist, so the internal header that GCC installed is a partial, self-contained file and does not include the extended features of the system header. This was adequate for building the temporary libc, but this build of GCC now requires the full internal header. Create a full version of the internal header using a command that is identical to what the GCC build system does in normal circumstances:

cat gcc/limitx.h gcc/glimits.h gcc/limity.h > \
  `dirname $($LFS_TGT-gcc -print-libgcc-file-name)`/include-fixed/limits.h

Once again, change the location of GCC's default dynamic linker to use the one installed in /tools.

for file in \
 $(find gcc/config -name linux64.h -o -name linux.h -o -name sysv4.h)
do
  cp -uv $file{,.orig}
  sed -e 's@/lib\(64\)\?\(32\)\?/ld@/tools&@g' \
      -e 's@/usr@/tools@g' $file.orig > $file
  echo '
#undef STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_1
#undef STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_2
#define STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_1 "/tools/lib/"
#define STANDARD_STARTFILE_PREFIX_2 ""' >> $file
  touch $file.orig
done

As in the first build of GCC it requires the GMP, MPFR and MPC packages. Unpack the tarballs and move them into the required directory names:

tar -xf ../mpfr-3.1.3.tar.xz
mv -v mpfr-3.1.3 mpfr
tar -xf ../gmp-6.0.0a.tar.xz
mv -v gmp-6.0.0 gmp
tar -xf ../mpc-1.0.3.tar.gz
mv -v mpc-1.0.3 mpc

Create a separate build directory again:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Before starting to build GCC, remember to unset any environment variables that override the default optimization flags.

Now prepare GCC for compilation:

CC=$LFS_TGT-gcc                                    \
CXX=$LFS_TGT-g++                                   \
AR=$LFS_TGT-ar                                     \
RANLIB=$LFS_TGT-ranlib                             \
../gcc-5.2.0/configure                             \
    --prefix=/tools                                \
    --with-local-prefix=/tools                     \
    --with-native-system-header-dir=/tools/include \
    --enable-languages=c,c++                       \
    --disable-libstdcxx-pch                        \
    --disable-multilib                             \
    --disable-bootstrap                            \
    --disable-libgomp

The meaning of the new configure options:

--enable-languages=c,c++

This option ensures that both the C and C++ compilers are built.

--disable-libstdcxx-pch

Do not build the pre-compiled header (PCH) for libstdc++. It takes up a lot of space, and we have no use for it.

--disable-bootstrap

For native builds of GCC, the default is to do a "bootstrap" build. This does not just compile GCC, but compiles it several times. It uses the programs compiled in a first round to compile itself a second time, and then again a third time. The second and third iterations are compared to make sure it can reproduce itself flawlessly. This also implies that it was compiled correctly. However, the LFS build method should provide a solid compiler without the need to bootstrap each time.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

As a finishing touch, create a symlink. Many programs and scripts run cc instead of gcc, which is used to keep programs generic and therefore usable on all kinds of UNIX systems where the GNU C compiler is not always installed. Running cc leaves the system administrator free to decide which C compiler to install:

ln -sv gcc /tools/bin/cc

Caution

At this point, it is imperative to stop and ensure that the basic functions (compiling and linking) of the new toolchain are working as expected. To perform a sanity check, run the following commands:

echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c
cc dummy.c
readelf -l a.out | grep ': /tools'

If everything is working correctly, there should be no errors, and the output of the last command will be of the form:

[Requesting program interpreter: /tools/lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Note that /tools/lib, or /tools/lib64 for 64-bit machines appears as the prefix of the dynamic linker.

If the output is not shown as above or there was no output at all, then something is wrong. Investigate and retrace the steps to find out where the problem is and correct it. This issue must be resolved before continuing on. First, perform the sanity check again, using gcc instead of cc. If this works, then the /tools/bin/cc symlink is missing. Install the symlink as per above. Next, ensure that the PATH is correct. This can be checked by running echo $PATH and verifying that /tools/bin is at the head of the list. If the PATH is wrong it could mean that you are not logged in as user lfs or that something went wrong back in Section 4.4, “Setting Up the Environment.”

Once all is well, clean up the test files:

rm -v dummy.c a.out

Details on this package are located in Section 6.17.2, “Contents of GCC.”

5.11. Tcl-core-8.6.4

The Tcl package contains the Tool Command Language.

Approximate build time: 0.5 SBU
Required disk space: 41 MB

5.11.1. Installation of Tcl-core

This package and the next three (Expect, DejaGNU, and Check) are installed to support running the test suites for GCC and Binutils and other packages. Installing four packages for testing purposes may seem excessive, but it is very reassuring, if not essential, to know that the most important tools are working properly. Even if the test suites are not run in this chapter (they are not mandatory), these packages are required to run the test suites in Chapter 6.

Note that the Tcl package used here is a minimal version needed to run the LFS tests. For the full package, see the BLFS Tcl procedures.

Prepare Tcl for compilation:

cd unix
./configure --prefix=/tools

Build the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Tcl test suite anyway, issue the following command:

TZ=UTC make test

The Tcl test suite may experience failures under certain host conditions that are not fully understood. Therefore, test suite failures here are not surprising, and are not considered critical. The TZ=UTC parameter sets the time zone to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), but only for the duration of the test suite run. This ensures that the clock tests are exercised correctly. Details on the TZ environment variable are provided in Chapter 7.

Install the package:

make install

Make the installed library writable so debugging symbols can be removed later:

chmod -v u+w /tools/lib/libtcl8.6.so

Install Tcl's headers. The next package, Expect, requires them to build.

make install-private-headers

Now make a necessary symbolic link:

ln -sv tclsh8.6 /tools/bin/tclsh

5.11.2. Contents of Tcl-core

Installed programs: tclsh (link to tclsh8.6) and tclsh8.6
Installed library: libtcl8.6.so, libtclstub8.6.a

Short Descriptions

tclsh8.6

The Tcl command shell

tclsh

A link to tclsh8.6

libtcl8.6.so

The Tcl library

libtclstub8.6.a

The Tcl Stub library

5.12. Expect-5.45

The Expect package contains a program for carrying out scripted dialogues with other interactive programs.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 4.4 MB

5.12.1. Installation of Expect

First, force Expect's configure script to use /bin/stty instead of a /usr/local/bin/stty it may find on the host system. This will ensure that our test suite tools remain sane for the final builds of our toolchain:

cp -v configure{,.orig}
sed 's:/usr/local/bin:/bin:' configure.orig > configure

Now prepare Expect for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools       \
            --with-tcl=/tools/lib \
            --with-tclinclude=/tools/include

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-tcl=/tools/lib

This ensures that the configure script finds the Tcl installation in the temporary tools location instead of possibly locating an existing one on the host system.

--with-tclinclude=/tools/include

This explicitly tells Expect where to find Tcl's internal headers. Using this option avoids conditions where configure fails because it cannot automatically discover the location of Tcl's headers.

Build the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Expect test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make test

Note that the Expect test suite is known to experience failures under certain host conditions that are not within our control. Therefore, test suite failures here are not surprising and are not considered critical.

Install the package:

make SCRIPTS="" install

The meaning of the make parameter:

SCRIPTS=""

This prevents installation of the supplementary Expect scripts, which are not needed.

5.12.2. Contents of Expect

Installed program: expect
Installed library: libexpect-5.45.so

Short Descriptions

expect

Communicates with other interactive programs according to a script

libexpect-5.45.so

Contains functions that allow Expect to be used as a Tcl extension or to be used directly from C or C++ (without Tcl)

5.13. DejaGNU-1.5.3

The DejaGNU package contains a framework for testing other programs.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 4.3 MB

5.13.1. Installation of DejaGNU

Prepare DejaGNU for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Build and install the package:

make install

To test the results, issue:

make check

5.13.2. Contents of DejaGNU

Installed program: runtest

Short Descriptions

runtest

A wrapper script that locates the proper expect shell and then runs DejaGNU

5.14. Check-0.10.0

Check is a unit testing framework for C.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 10 MB

5.14.1. Installation of Check

Prepare Check for compilation:

PKG_CONFIG= ./configure --prefix=/tools

The meaning of the configure parameter:

PKG_CONFIG=

This tells the configure script to ignore any pkg-config options that may cause the system to try to link with libraries not in the /tools directory.

Build the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Check test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Note that the Check test suite may take a relatively long (up to 4 SBU) time.

Install the package:

make install

5.14.2. Contents of Check

Installed program: checkmk
Installed library: libcheck.{a,so}

Short Descriptions

checkmk

Awk script for generating C unit tests for use with the Check unit testing framework

libcheck.{a,so}

Contains functions that allow Check to be called from a test program

5.15. Ncurses-6.0

The Ncurses package contains libraries for terminal-independent handling of character screens.

Approximate build time: 0.7 SBU
Required disk space: 38 MB

5.15.1. Installation of Ncurses

First, ensure that gawk is found first during configuration:

sed -i s/mawk// configure

Prepare Ncurses for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools \
            --with-shared   \
            --without-debug \
            --without-ada   \
            --enable-widec  \
            --enable-overwrite

The meaning of the configure options:

--without-ada

This ensures that Ncurses does not build support for the Ada compiler which may be present on the host but will not be available once we enter the chroot environment.

--enable-overwrite

This tells Ncurses to install its header files into /tools/include, instead of /tools/include/ncurses, to ensure that other packages can find the Ncurses headers successfully.

--enable-widec

This switch causes wide-character libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so.6.0) to be built instead of normal ones (e.g., libncurses.so.6.0). These wide-character libraries are usable in both multibyte and traditional 8-bit locales, while normal libraries work properly only in 8-bit locales. Wide-character and normal libraries are source-compatible, but not binary-compatible.

Compile the package:

make

This package has a test suite, but it can only be run after the package has been installed. The tests reside in the test/ directory. See the README file in that directory for further details.

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.20.2, “Contents of Ncurses.”

5.16. Bash-4.3.30

The Bash package contains the Bourne-Again SHell.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 55 MB

5.16.1. Installation of Bash

Prepare Bash for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --without-bash-malloc

The meaning of the configure options:

--without-bash-malloc

This option turns off the use of Bash's memory allocation (malloc) function which is known to cause segmentation faults. By turning this option off, Bash will use the malloc functions from Glibc which are more stable.

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Bash test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make tests

Install the package:

make install

Make a link for the programs that use sh for a shell:

ln -sv bash /tools/bin/sh

Details on this package are located in Section 6.36.2, “Contents of Bash.”

5.17. Bzip2-1.0.6

The Bzip2 package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. Compressing text files with bzip2 yields a much better compression percentage than with the traditional gzip.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 5.7 MB

5.17.1. Installation of Bzip2

The Bzip2 package does not contain a configure script. Compile and test it with:

make

Install the package:

make PREFIX=/tools install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.18.2, “Contents of Bzip2.”

5.18. Coreutils-8.24

The Coreutils package contains utilities for showing and setting the basic system characteristics.

Approximate build time: 0.7 SBU
Required disk space: 133 MB

5.18.1. Installation of Coreutils

Prepare Coreutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --enable-install-program=hostname

The meaning of the configure options:

--enable-install-program=hostname

This enables the hostname binary to be built and installed – it is disabled by default but is required by the Perl test suite.

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Coreutils test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes check

The RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes parameter tells the test suite to run several additional tests that are considered relatively expensive (in terms of CPU power and memory usage) on some platforms, but generally are not a problem on Linux.

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.29.2, “Contents of Coreutils.”

5.19. Diffutils-3.3

The Diffutils package contains programs that show the differences between files or directories.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 20 MB

5.19.1. Installation of Diffutils

Prepare Diffutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Diffutils test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.46.2, “Contents of Diffutils.”

5.20. File-5.24

The File package contains a utility for determining the type of a given file or files.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 14 MB

5.20.1. Installation of File

Prepare File for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the File test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.12.2, “Contents of File.”

5.21. Findutils-4.4.2

The Findutils package contains programs to find files. These programs are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to create, maintain, and search a database (often faster than the recursive find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 26 MB

5.21.1. Installation of Findutils

Prepare Findutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Findutils test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.48.2, “Contents of Findutils.”

5.22. Gawk-4.1.3

The Gawk package contains programs for manipulating text files.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 36 MB

5.22.1. Installation of Gawk

Prepare Gawk for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Gawk test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.47.2, “Contents of Gawk.”

5.23. Gettext-0.19.5.1

The Gettext package contains utilities for internationalization and localization. These allow programs to be compiled with NLS (Native Language Support), enabling them to output messages in the user's native language.

Approximate build time: 0.9 SBU
Required disk space: 153 MB

5.23.1. Installation of Gettext

For our temporary set of tools, we only need to build and install three programs from Gettext.

Prepare Gettext for compilation:

cd gettext-tools
EMACS="no" ./configure --prefix=/tools --disable-shared

The meaning of the configure option:

EMACS="no"

This prevents the configure script from determining where to install Emacs Lisp files as the test is known to hang on some hosts.

--disable-shared

We do not need to install any of the shared Gettext libraries at this time, therefore there is no need to build them.

Compile the package:

make -C gnulib-lib
make -C intl pluralx.c
make -C src msgfmt
make -C src msgmerge
make -C src xgettext

As only three programs have been compiled, it is not possible to run the test suite without compiling additional support libraries from the Gettext package. It is therefore not recommended to attempt to run the test suite at this stage.

Install the msgfmt, msgmerge and xgettext programs:

cp -v src/{msgfmt,msgmerge,xgettext} /tools/bin

Details on this package are located in Section 6.49.2, “Contents of Gettext.”

5.24. Grep-2.21

The Grep package contains programs for searching through files.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 19 MB

5.24.1. Installation of Grep

Prepare Grep for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Grep test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.34.2, “Contents of Grep.”

5.25. Gzip-1.6

The Gzip package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 9.9 MB

5.25.1. Installation of Gzip

Prepare Gzip for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Gzip test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.56.2, “Contents of Gzip.”

5.26. M4-1.4.17

The M4 package contains a macro processor.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 19 MB

5.26.1. Installation of M4

Prepare M4 for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the M4 test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.31.2, “Contents of M4.”

5.27. Make-4.1

The Make package contains a program for compiling packages.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 12.3 MB

5.27.1. Installation of Make

Prepare Make for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools --without-guile

The meaning of the configure option:

--without-guile

This ensures that Make-4.1 won't link against Guile libraries, which may be present on the host system, but won't be available within the chroot environment in the next chapter.

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Make test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.61.2, “Contents of Make.”

5.28. Patch-2.7.5

The Patch package contains a program for modifying or creating files by applying a patch file typically created by the diff program.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 11.1 MB

5.28.1. Installation of Patch

Prepare Patch for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Patch test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.62.2, “Contents of Patch.”

5.29. Perl-5.22.0

The Perl package contains the Practical Extraction and Report Language.

Approximate build time: 1.6 SBU
Required disk space: 241 MB

5.29.1. Installation of Perl

Prepare Perl for compilation:

sh Configure -des -Dprefix=/tools -Dlibs=-lm

Build the package:

make

Although Perl comes with a test suite, it would be better to wait until it is installed in the next chapter.

Only a few of the utilities and libraries need to be installed at this time:

cp -v perl cpan/podlators/pod2man /tools/bin
mkdir -pv /tools/lib/perl5/5.22.0
cp -Rv lib/* /tools/lib/perl5/5.22.0

Details on this package are located in Section 6.42.2, “Contents of Perl.”

5.30. Sed-4.2.2

The Sed package contains a stream editor.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 10.2 MB

5.30.1. Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Sed test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.24.2, “Contents of Sed.”

5.31. Tar-1.28

The Tar package contains an archiving program.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 33 MB

5.31.1. Installation of Tar

Prepare Tar for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Tar test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.67.2, “Contents of Tar.”

5.32. Texinfo-6.0

The Texinfo package contains programs for reading, writing, and converting info pages.

Approximate build time: 0.3 SBU
Required disk space: 98 MB

5.32.1. Installation of Texinfo

Prepare Texinfo for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Texinfo test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.68.2, “Contents of Texinfo.”

5.33. Util-linux-2.27

The Util-linux package contains miscellaneous utility programs.

Approximate build time: 0.8 SBU
Required disk space: 120 MB

5.33.1. Installation of Util-linux

Prepare Util-linux for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools                \
            --without-python               \
            --disable-makeinstall-chown    \
            --without-systemdsystemunitdir \
            PKG_CONFIG=""

The meaning of the configure option:

--without-python

This switch disables using Python if it is installed on the host system. It avoids trying to build unneeded bindings.

--disable-makeinstall-chown

This switch disables using the chown command during installation. This is not needed when installing into the /tools directory and avoids the necessity of installing as root.

--without-systemdsystemunitdir

On systems that use systemd, the package tries to install a systemd specific file to a non-existent directory in /tools. This switch disables the unnecessary action.

PKG_CONFIG=""

Setting this envronment variable prevents adding unneeded features that may be available on the host. Note that the location shown for setting this environment variable is different from other LFS sections where variables are set preceding the command. This location is shown to demonstrate an alternative way of setting an environment variable when using configure.

Compile the package:

make

Install the package:

make install

5.34. Xz-5.2.1

The Xz package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. It provides capabilities for the lzma and the newer xz compression formats. Compressing text files with xz yields a better compression percentage than with the traditional gzip or bzip2 commands.

Approximate build time: 0.3 SBU
Required disk space: 17.7 MB

5.34.1. Installation of Xz

Prepare Xz for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/tools

Compile the package:

make

Compilation is now complete. As discussed earlier, running the test suite is not mandatory for the temporary tools here in this chapter. To run the Xz test suite anyway, issue the following command:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.53.2, “Contents of Xz.”

5.35. Stripping

The steps in this section are optional, but if the LFS partition is rather small, it is beneficial to learn that unnecessary items can be removed. The executables and libraries built so far contain about 70 MB of unneeded debugging symbols. Remove those symbols with:

strip --strip-debug /tools/lib/*
/usr/bin/strip --strip-unneeded /tools/{,s}bin/*

These commands will skip a number of files, reporting that it does not recognize their file format. Most of these are scripts instead of binaries. Also use the system strip command to include the strip binary in /tools.

Take care not to use --strip-unneeded on the libraries. The static ones would be destroyed and the toolchain packages would need to be built all over again.

To save more, remove the documentation:

rm -rf /tools/{,share}/{info,man,doc}

At this point, you should have at least 3 GB of free space in $LFS that can be used to build and install Glibc and Gcc in the next phase. If you can build and install Glibc, you can build and install the rest too.

5.36. Changing Ownership

Note

The commands in the remainder of this book must be performed while logged in as user root and no longer as user lfs. Also, double check that $LFS is set in root's environment.

Currently, the $LFS/tools directory is owned by the user lfs, a user that exists only on the host system. If the $LFS/tools directory is kept as is, the files are owned by a user ID without a corresponding account. This is dangerous because a user account created later could get this same user ID and would own the $LFS/tools directory and all the files therein, thus exposing these files to possible malicious manipulation.

To avoid this issue, you could add the lfs user to the new LFS system later when creating the /etc/passwd file, taking care to assign it the same user and group IDs as on the host system. Better yet, change the ownership of the $LFS/tools directory to user root by running the following command:

chown -R root:root $LFS/tools

Although the $LFS/tools directory can be deleted once the LFS system has been finished, it can be retained to build additional LFS systems of the same book version. How best to backup $LFS/tools is a matter of personal preference.

Caution

If you intend to keep the temporary tools for use in building future LFS systems, now is the time to back them up. Subsequent commands in chapter 6 will alter the tools currently in place, rendering them useless for future builds.

Part III. Building the LFS System

Chapter 6. Installing Basic System Software

6.1. Introduction

In this chapter, we enter the building site and start constructing the LFS system in earnest. That is, we chroot into the temporary mini Linux system, make a few final preparations, and then begin installing the packages.

The installation of this software is straightforward. Although in many cases the installation instructions could be made shorter and more generic, we have opted to provide the full instructions for every package to minimize the possibilities for mistakes. The key to learning what makes a Linux system work is to know what each package is used for and why you (or the system) may need it.

We do not recommend using optimizations. They can make a program run slightly faster, but they may also cause compilation difficulties and problems when running the program. If a package refuses to compile when using optimization, try to compile it without optimization and see if that fixes the problem. Even if the package does compile when using optimization, there is the risk it may have been compiled incorrectly because of the complex interactions between the code and build tools. Also note that the -march and -mtune options using values not specified in the book have not been tested. This may cause problems with the toolchain packages (Binutils, GCC and Glibc). The small potential gains achieved in using compiler optimizations are often outweighed by the risks. First-time builders of LFS are encouraged to build without custom optimizations. The subsequent system will still run very fast and be stable at the same time.

The order that packages are installed in this chapter needs to be strictly followed to ensure that no program accidentally acquires a path referring to /tools hard-wired into it. For the same reason, do not compile separate packages in parallel. Compiling in parallel may save time (especially on dual-CPU machines), but it could result in a program containing a hard-wired path to /tools, which will cause the program to stop working when that directory is removed.

Before the installation instructions, each installation page provides information about the package, including a concise description of what it contains, approximately how long it will take to build, and how much disk space is required during this building process. Following the installation instructions, there is a list of programs and libraries (along with brief descriptions of these) that the package installs.

Note

The SBU values and required disk space includes test suite data for all applicable packages in Chapter 6.

6.1.1. About libraries

In general, the LFS editors discourage building and installing static libraries. The original purpose for most static libraries has been made obsolete in a modern Linux system. In addition linking a static library into a program can be detrimental. If an update to the library is needed to remove a security problem, all programs that use the static library will need to be relinked to the new library. Since the use of static libraries is not always obvious, the relevant programs (and the procedures needed to do the linking) may not even be known.

In the procedures in Chapter 6, we remove or disable installation of most static libraries. In a few cases, especially glibc and gcc, the use of static libraries remains essential to the general package building process. Usually this is done by passing a --disable-static option to configure. In other cases, alternate means are needed.

For a more complete discussion of libraries, see the discussion Libraries: Static or shared? in the BLFS book.

6.2. Preparing Virtual Kernel File Systems

Various file systems exported by the kernel are used to communicate to and from the kernel itself. These file systems are virtual in that no disk space is used for them. The content of the file systems resides in memory.

Begin by creating directories onto which the file systems will be mounted:

mkdir -pv $LFS/{dev,proc,sys,run}

6.2.1. Creating Initial Device Nodes

When the kernel boots the system, it requires the presence of a few device nodes, in particular the console and null devices. The device nodes must be created on the hard disk so that they are available before udevd has been started, and additionally when Linux is started with init=/bin/bash. Create the devices by running the following commands:

mknod -m 600 $LFS/dev/console c 5 1
mknod -m 666 $LFS/dev/null c 1 3

6.2.2. Mounting and Populating /dev

The recommended method of populating the /dev directory with devices is to mount a virtual filesystem (such as tmpfs) on the /dev directory, and allow the devices to be created dynamically on that virtual filesystem as they are detected or accessed. Device creation is generally done during the boot process by Udev. Since this new system does not yet have Udev and has not yet been booted, it is necessary to mount and populate /dev manually. This is accomplished by bind mounting the host system's /dev directory. A bind mount is a special type of mount that allows you to create a mirror of a directory or mount point to some other location. Use the following command to achieve this:

mount -v --bind /dev $LFS/dev

6.2.3. Mounting Virtual Kernel File Systems

Now mount the remaining virtual kernel filesystems:

mount -vt devpts devpts $LFS/dev/pts -o gid=5,mode=620
mount -vt proc proc $LFS/proc
mount -vt sysfs sysfs $LFS/sys
mount -vt tmpfs tmpfs $LFS/run

The meaning of the mount options for devpts:

gid=5

This ensures that all devpts-created device nodes are owned by group ID 5. This is the ID we will use later on for the tty group. We use the group ID instead of a name, since the host system might use a different ID for its tty group.

mode=0620

This ensures that all devpts-created device nodes have mode 0620 (user readable and writable, group writable). Together with the option above, this ensures that devpts will create device nodes that meet the requirements of grantpt(), meaning the Glibc pt_chown helper binary (which is not installed by default) is not necessary.

In some host systems, /dev/shm is a symbolic link to /run/shm. The /run tmpfs was mounted above so in this case only a directory needs to be created.

if [ -h $LFS/dev/shm ]; then
  mkdir -pv $LFS/$(readlink $LFS/dev/shm)
fi

6.3. Package Management

Package Management is an often requested addition to the LFS Book. A Package Manager allows tracking the installation of files making it easy to remove and upgrade packages. As well as the binary and library files, a package manager will handle the installation of configuration files. Before you begin to wonder, NO—this section will not talk about nor recommend any particular package manager. What it provides is a roundup of the more popular techniques and how they work. The perfect package manager for you may be among these techniques or may be a combination of two or more of these techniques. This section briefly mentions issues that may arise when upgrading packages.

Some reasons why no package manager is mentioned in LFS or BLFS include:

  • Dealing with package management takes the focus away from the goals of these books—teaching how a Linux system is built.

  • There are multiple solutions for package management, each having its strengths and drawbacks. Including one that satisfies all audiences is difficult.

There are some hints written on the topic of package management. Visit the Hints Project and see if one of them fits your need.

6.3.1. Upgrade Issues

A Package Manager makes it easy to upgrade to newer versions when they are released. Generally the instructions in the LFS and BLFS Book can be used to upgrade to the newer versions. Here are some points that you should be aware of when upgrading packages, especially on a running system.

  • If Glibc needs to be upgraded to a newer version, (e.g. from glibc-2.19 to glibc-2.20, it is safer to rebuild LFS. Though you may be able to rebuild all the packages in their dependency order, we do not recommend it.

  • If a package containing a shared library is updated, and if the name of the library changes, then all the packages dynamically linked to the library need to be recompiled to link against the newer library. (Note that there is no correlation between the package version and the name of the library.) For example, consider a package foo-1.2.3 that installs a shared library with name libfoo.so.1. Say you upgrade the package to a newer version foo-1.2.4 that installs a shared library with name libfoo.so.2. In this case, all packages that are dynamically linked to libfoo.so.1 need to be recompiled to link against libfoo.so.2. Note that you should not remove the previous libraries until the dependent packages are recompiled.

6.3.2. Package Management Techniques

The following are some common package management techniques. Before making a decision on a package manager, do some research on the various techniques, particularly the drawbacks of the particular scheme.

6.3.2.1. It is All in My Head!

Yes, this is a package management technique. Some folks do not find the need for a package manager because they know the packages intimately and know what files are installed by each package. Some users also do not need any package management because they plan on rebuilding the entire system when a package is changed.

6.3.2.2. Install in Separate Directories

This is a simplistic package management that does not need any extra package to manage the installations. Each package is installed in a separate directory. For example, package foo-1.1 is installed in /usr/pkg/foo-1.1 and a symlink is made from /usr/pkg/foo to /usr/pkg/foo-1.1. When installing a new version foo-1.2, it is installed in /usr/pkg/foo-1.2 and the previous symlink is replaced by a symlink to the new version.

Environment variables such as PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, MANPATH, INFOPATH and CPPFLAGS need to be expanded to include /usr/pkg/foo. For more than a few packages, this scheme becomes unmanageable.

6.3.2.3. Symlink Style Package Management

This is a variation of the previous package management technique. Each package is installed similar to the previous scheme. But instead of making the symlink, each file is symlinked into the /usr hierarchy. This removes the need to expand the environment variables. Though the symlinks can be created by the user to automate the creation, many package managers have been written using this approach. A few of the popular ones include Stow, Epkg, Graft, and Depot.

The installation needs to be faked, so that the package thinks that it is installed in /usr though in reality it is installed in the /usr/pkg hierarchy. Installing in this manner is not usually a trivial task. For example, consider that you are installing a package libfoo-1.1. The following instructions may not install the package properly:

./configure --prefix=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1
make
make install

The installation will work, but the dependent packages may not link to libfoo as you would expect. If you compile a package that links against libfoo, you may notice that it is linked to /usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1/lib/libfoo.so.1 instead of /usr/lib/libfoo.so.1 as you would expect. The correct approach is to use the DESTDIR strategy to fake installation of the package. This approach works as follows:

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make DESTDIR=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 install

Most packages support this approach, but there are some which do not. For the non-compliant packages, you may either need to manually install the package, or you may find that it is easier to install some problematic packages into /opt.

6.3.2.4. Timestamp Based

In this technique, a file is timestamped before the installation of the package. After the installation, a simple use of the find command with the appropriate options can generate a log of all the files installed after the timestamp file was created. A package manager written with this approach is install-log.

Though this scheme has the advantage of being simple, it has two drawbacks. If, during installation, the files are installed with any timestamp other than the current time, those files will not be tracked by the package manager. Also, this scheme can only be used when one package is installed at a time. The logs are not reliable if two packages are being installed on two different consoles.

6.3.2.5. Tracing Installation Scripts

In this approach, the commands that the installation scripts perform are recorded. There are two techniques that one can use:

The LD_PRELOAD environment variable can be set to point to a library to be preloaded before installation. During installation, this library tracks the packages that are being installed by attaching itself to various executables such as cp, install, mv and tracking the system calls that modify the filesystem. For this approach to work, all the executables need to be dynamically linked without the suid or sgid bit. Preloading the library may cause some unwanted side-effects during installation. Therefore, it is advised that one performs some tests to ensure that the package manager does not break anything and logs all the appropriate files.

The second technique is to use strace, which logs all system calls made during the execution of the installation scripts.

6.3.2.6. Creating Package Archives

In this scheme, the package installation is faked into a separate tree as described in the Symlink style package management. After the installation, a package archive is created using the installed files. This archive is then used to install the package either on the local machine or can even be used to install the package on other machines.

This approach is used by most of the package managers found in the commercial distributions. Examples of package managers that follow this approach are RPM (which, incidentally, is required by the Linux Standard Base Specification), pkg-utils, Debian's apt, and Gentoo's Portage system. A hint describing how to adopt this style of package management for LFS systems is located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/fakeroot.txt.

Creation of package files that include dependency information is complex and is beyond the scope of LFS.

Slackware uses a tar based system for package archives. This system purposely does not handle package dependencies as more complex package managers do. For details of Slackware package management, see http://www.slackbook.org/html/package-management.html.

6.3.2.7. User Based Management

This scheme, unique to LFS, was devised by Matthias Benkmann, and is available from the Hints Project. In this scheme, each package is installed as a separate user into the standard locations. Files belonging to a package are easily identified by checking the user ID. The features and shortcomings of this approach are too complex to describe in this section. For the details please see the hint at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/more_control_and_pkg_man.txt.

6.3.3. Deploying LFS on Multiple Systems

One of the advantages of an LFS system is that there are no files that depend on the position of files on a disk system. Cloning an LFS build to another computer with the same architecture as the base system is as simple as using tar on the LFS partition that contains the root directory (about 250MB uncompressed for a base LFS build), copying that file via network transfer or CD-ROM to the new system and expanding it. From that point, a few configuration files will have to be changed. Configuration files that may need to be updated include: /etc/hosts, /etc/fstab, /etc/passwd, /etc/group, /etc/shadow, and /etc/ld.so.conf.

A custom kernel may need to be built for the new system depending on differences in system hardware and the original kernel configuration.

Note

There have been some reports of issues when copying between similar but not identical architectures. For instance, the instruction set for an Intel architecture is not identical with an AMD processor and later versions of some processors may have instructions that are unavailable in earlier versions.

Finally the new system has to be made bootable via Section 8.4, “Using GRUB to Set Up the Boot Process”.

6.4. Entering the Chroot Environment

It is time to enter the chroot environment to begin building and installing the final LFS system. As user root, run the following command to enter the realm that is, at the moment, populated with only the temporary tools:

chroot "$LFS" /tools/bin/env -i \
    HOME=/root                  \
    TERM="$TERM"                \
    PS1='\u:\w\$ '              \
    PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/tools/bin \
    /tools/bin/bash --login +h

The -i option given to the env command will clear all variables of the chroot environment. After that, only the HOME, TERM, PS1, and PATH variables are set again. The TERM=$TERM construct will set the TERM variable inside chroot to the same value as outside chroot. This variable is needed for programs like vim and less to operate properly. If other variables are needed, such as CFLAGS or CXXFLAGS, this is a good place to set them again.

From this point on, there is no need to use the LFS variable anymore, because all work will be restricted to the LFS file system. This is because the Bash shell is told that $LFS is now the root (/) directory.

Notice that /tools/bin comes last in the PATH. This means that a temporary tool will no longer be used once its final version is installed. This occurs when the shell does not remember the locations of executed binaries—for this reason, hashing is switched off by passing the +h option to bash.

Note that the bash prompt will say I have no name! This is normal because the /etc/passwd file has not been created yet.

Note

It is important that all the commands throughout the remainder of this chapter and the following chapters are run from within the chroot environment. If you leave this environment for any reason (rebooting for example), ensure that the virtual kernel filesystems are mounted as explained in Section 6.2.2, “Mounting and Populating /dev” and Section 6.2.3, “Mounting Virtual Kernel File Systems” and enter chroot again before continuing with the installation.

6.5. Creating Directories

It is time to create some structure in the LFS file system. Create a standard directory tree by issuing the following commands:

mkdir -pv /{bin,boot,etc/{opt,sysconfig},home,lib/firmware,mnt,opt}
mkdir -pv /{media/{floppy,cdrom},sbin,srv,var}
install -dv -m 0750 /root
install -dv -m 1777 /tmp /var/tmp
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{color,dict,doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -v  /usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -v  /usr/libexec
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}

case $(uname -m) in
 x86_64) ln -sv lib /lib64
         ln -sv lib /usr/lib64
         ln -sv lib /usr/local/lib64 ;;
esac

mkdir -v /var/{log,mail,spool}
ln -sv /run /var/run
ln -sv /run/lock /var/lock
mkdir -pv /var/{opt,cache,lib/{color,misc,locate},local}

Directories are, by default, created with permission mode 755, but this is not desirable for all directories. In the commands above, two changes are made—one to the home directory of user root, and another to the directories for temporary files.

The first mode change ensures that not just anybody can enter the /root directory—the same as a normal user would do with his or her home directory. The second mode change makes sure that any user can write to the /tmp and /var/tmp directories, but cannot remove another user's files from them. The latter is prohibited by the so-called sticky bit, the highest bit (1) in the 1777 bit mask.

6.5.1. FHS Compliance Note

The directory tree is based on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) (available at https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/FHS). The FHS also stipulates the existence of /usr/local/games and /usr/share/games. The FHS is not precise as to the structure of the /usr/local/share subdirectory, so we create only the directories that are needed. However, feel free to create these directories if you prefer to conform more strictly to the FHS.

6.6. Creating Essential Files and Symlinks

Some programs use hard-wired paths to programs which do not exist yet. In order to satisfy these programs, create a number of symbolic links which will be replaced by real files throughout the course of this chapter after the software has been installed:

ln -sv /tools/bin/{bash,cat,echo,pwd,stty} /bin
ln -sv /tools/bin/perl /usr/bin
ln -sv /tools/lib/libgcc_s.so{,.1} /usr/lib
ln -sv /tools/lib/libstdc++.so{,.6} /usr/lib
sed 's/tools/usr/' /tools/lib/libstdc++.la > /usr/lib/libstdc++.la
ln -sv bash /bin/sh

The purpose of each link:

/bin/bash

Many bash scripts specify /bin/bash.

/bin/cat

This pathname is hard-coded into Glibc's configure script.

/bin/echo

This is to satisfy one of the tests in Glibc's test suite, which expects /bin/echo.

/bin/pwd

Some configure scripts, particularly Glibc's, have this pathname hard-coded.

/bin/stty

This pathname is hard-coded into Expect, therefore it is needed for Binutils and GCC test suites to pass.

/usr/bin/perl

Many Perl scripts hard-code this path to the perl program.

/usr/lib/libgcc_s.so{,.1}

Glibc needs this for the pthreads library to work.

/usr/lib/libstdc++{,.6}

This is needed by several tests in Glibc's test suite, as well as for C++ support in GMP.

/usr/lib/libstdc++.la

This prevents a /tools reference that would otherwise be in /usr/lib/libstdc++.la after GCC is installed.

/bin/sh

Many shell scripts hard-code /bin/sh.

Historically, Linux maintains a list of the mounted file systems in the file /etc/mtab. Modern kernels maintain this list internally and exposes it to the user via the /proc filesystem. To satisfy utilities that expect the presence of /etc/mtab, create the following symbolic link:

ln -sv /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

In order for user root to be able to login and for the name root to be recognized, there must be relevant entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.

Create the /etc/passwd file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/passwd << "EOF"
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/dev/null:/bin/false
daemon:x:6:6:Daemon User:/dev/null:/bin/false
messagebus:x:18:18:D-Bus Message Daemon User:/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
systemd-bus-proxy:x:72:72:systemd Bus Proxy:/:/bin/false
systemd-journal-gateway:x:73:73:systemd Journal Gateway:/:/bin/false
systemd-journal-remote:x:74:74:systemd Journal Remote:/:/bin/false
systemd-journal-upload:x:75:75:systemd Journal Upload:/:/bin/false
systemd-network:x:76:76:systemd Network Management:/:/bin/false
systemd-resolve:x:77:77:systemd Resolver:/:/bin/false
systemd-timesync:x:78:78:systemd Time Synchronization:/:/bin/false
nobody:x:99:99:Unprivileged User:/dev/null:/bin/false
EOF

The actual password for root (the x used here is just a placeholder) will be set later.

Create the /etc/group file by running the following command:

cat > /etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:daemon
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tape:x:4:
tty:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
usb:x:14:
cdrom:x:15:
adm:x:16:
messagebus:x:18:
systemd-journal:x:23:
input:x:24:
mail:x:34:
systemd-bus-proxy:x:72:
systemd-journal-gateway:x:73:
systemd-journal-remote:x:74:
systemd-journal-upload:x:75:
systemd-network:x:76:
systemd-resolve:x:77:
systemd-timesync:x:78:
nogroup:x:99:
users:x:999:
EOF

The created groups are not part of any standard—they are groups decided on in part by the requirements of the Udev configuration in this chapter, and in part by common convention employed by a number of existing Linux distributions. In addition, some test suites rely on specific users or groups. The Linux Standard Base (LSB, available at http://www.linuxbase.org) recommends only that, besides the group root with a Group ID (GID) of 0, a group bin with a GID of 1 be present. All other group names and GIDs can be chosen freely by the system administrator since well-written programs do not depend on GID numbers, but rather use the group's name.

To remove the I have no name! prompt, start a new shell. Since a full Glibc was installed in Chapter 5 and the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files have been created, user name and group name resolution will now work:

exec /tools/bin/bash --login +h

Note the use of the +h directive. This tells bash not to use its internal path hashing. Without this directive, bash would remember the paths to binaries it has executed. To ensure the use of the newly compiled binaries as soon as they are installed, the +h directive will be used for the duration of this chapter.

The login, agetty, and init programs (and others) use a number of log files to record information such as who was logged into the system and when. However, these programs will not write to the log files if they do not already exist. Initialize the log files and give them proper permissions:

touch /var/log/{btmp,lastlog,wtmp}
chgrp -v utmp /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 664  /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 600  /var/log/btmp

The /var/log/wtmp file records all logins and logouts. The /var/log/lastlog file records when each user last logged in. The /var/log/btmp file records the bad login attempts.

Note

The /run/utmp file records the users that are currently logged in. This file is created dynamically in the boot scripts.

6.7. Linux-4.2 API Headers

The Linux API Headers (in linux-4.2.tar.xz) expose the kernel's API for use by Glibc.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 712 MB

6.7.1. Installation of Linux API Headers

The Linux kernel needs to expose an Application Programming Interface (API) for the system's C library (Glibc in LFS) to use. This is done by way of sanitizing various C header files that are shipped in the Linux kernel source tarball.

Make sure there are no stale files and dependencies lying around from previous activity:

make mrproper

Now extract the user-visible kernel headers from the source. They are placed in an intermediate local directory and copied to the needed location because the extraction process removes any existing files in the target directory. There are also some hidden files used by the kernel developers and not needed by LFS that are removed from the intermediate directory.

make INSTALL_HDR_PATH=dest headers_install
find dest/include \( -name .install -o -name ..install.cmd \) -delete
cp -rv dest/include/* /usr/include

6.7.2. Contents of Linux API Headers

Installed headers: /usr/include/asm/*.h, /usr/include/asm-generic/*.h, /usr/include/drm/*.h, /usr/include/linux/*.h, /usr/include/mtd/*.h, /usr/include/rdma/*.h, /usr/include/scsi/*.h, /usr/include/sound/*.h, /usr/include/video/*.h, and /usr/include/xen/*.h
Installed directories: /usr/include/asm, /usr/include/asm-generic, /usr/include/drm, /usr/include/linux, /usr/include/mtd, /usr/include/rdma, /usr/include/scsi, /usr/include/sound, /usr/include/video, and /usr/include/xen

Short Descriptions

/usr/include/asm/*.h

The Linux API ASM Headers

/usr/include/asm-generic/*.h

The Linux API ASM Generic Headers

/usr/include/drm/*.h

The Linux API DRM Headers

/usr/include/linux/*.h

The Linux API Linux Headers

/usr/include/mtd/*.h

The Linux API MTD Headers

/usr/include/rdma/*.h

The Linux API RDMA Headers

/usr/include/scsi/*.h

The Linux API SCSI Headers

/usr/include/sound/*.h

The Linux API Sound Headers

/usr/include/video/*.h

The Linux API Video Headers

/usr/include/xen/*.h

The Linux API Xen Headers

6.8. Man-pages-4.02

The Man-pages package contains over 2,200 man pages.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 26 MB

6.8.1. Installation of Man-pages

Install Man-pages by running:

make install

6.8.2. Contents of Man-pages

Installed files: various man pages

Short Descriptions

man pages

Describe C programming language functions, important device files, and significant configuration files

6.9. Glibc-2.22

The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and closing files, reading and writing files, string handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and so on.

Approximate build time: 20.7 SBU
Required disk space: 1.2 GB

6.9.1. Installation of Glibc

Note

Some packages outside of LFS suggest installing GNU libiconv in order to translate data from one encoding to another. The project's home page (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/) says This library provides an iconv() implementation, for use on systems which don't have one, or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode. Glibc provides an iconv() implementation and can convert from/to Unicode, therefore libiconv is not required on an LFS system.

Some of the Glibc programs use non-FHS compilant /var/db directory to store their runtime data. Apply the following patch to make such programs store their runtime data in the FHS-compliant locations:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.22-fhs-1.patch

The Glibc build system is self-contained and will install perfectly, even though the compiler specs file and linker are still pointing at /tools. The specs and linker cannot be adjusted before the Glibc install because the Glibc autoconf tests would give false results and defeat the goal of achieving a clean build.

Now, fix a build problem that affects i386 systems:

patch -Np1 -i ../glibc-2.22-upstream_i386_fix-1.patch

The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../glibc-build
cd ../glibc-build

Prepare Glibc for compilation:

../glibc-2.22/configure    \
    --prefix=/usr          \
    --disable-profile      \
    --enable-kernel=2.6.32 \
    --enable-obsolete-rpc

Compile the package:

make

Important

In this section, the test suite for Glibc is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance.

Generally a few tests do not pass, but you can generally ignore any of the test failures listed below. Now test the build results:

make check

You will probably see some test failures. The Glibc test suite is somewhat dependent on the host system. This is a list of the most common issues seen for this version of LFS:

  • posix/tst-getaddrinfo4 will always fail due to not having the necessary network applications when the tests are run.

  • The tst/tst-cputimer1 and rt/tst-cpuclock2 tests have been known to fail. The reason is not completely understood, but indications are that minor timing issues can trigger these failures.

  • The math tests sometimes fail when running on systems where the CPU is not a relatively new genuine Intel or authentic AMD processor.

  • The elf/tst-protected1a and elf/tst-protected1b tests are known to fail with the current stable version of binutils.

  • Other tests known to fail on some architectures are malloc/tst-malloc-usable and nptl/tst-cleanupx4.

Though it is a harmless message, the install stage of Glibc will complain about the absence of /etc/ld.so.conf. Prevent this warning with:

touch /etc/ld.so.conf

Install the package:

make install

Install the configuration file and runtime directory for nscd:

cp -v ../glibc-2.22/nscd/nscd.conf /etc/nscd.conf
mkdir -pv /var/cache/nscd

Install the systemd support files for nscd:

install -v -Dm644 ../glibc-2.22/nscd/nscd.tmpfiles /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/nscd.conf
install -v -Dm644 ../glibc-2.22/nscd/nscd.service /lib/systemd/system/nscd.service

The locales that can make the system respond in a different language were not installed by the above command. None of the locales are required, but if some of them are missing, test suites of the future packages would skip important testcases.

Individual locales can be installed using the localedef program. E.g., the first localedef command below combines the /usr/share/i18n/locales/cs_CZ charset-independent locale definition with the /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/UTF-8.gz charmap definition and appends the result to the /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive file. The following instructions will install the minimum set of locales necessary for the optimal coverage of tests:

mkdir -pv /usr/lib/locale
localedef -i cs_CZ -f UTF-8 cs_CZ.UTF-8
localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE
localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro
localedef -i de_DE -f UTF-8 de_DE.UTF-8
localedef -i en_GB -f UTF-8 en_GB.UTF-8
localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK
localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH
localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US
localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8
localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX
localedef -i fa_IR -f UTF-8 fa_IR
localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR
localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro
localedef -i fr_FR -f UTF-8 fr_FR.UTF-8
localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT
localedef -i it_IT -f UTF-8 it_IT.UTF-8
localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP
localedef -i ru_RU -f KOI8-R ru_RU.KOI8-R
localedef -i ru_RU -f UTF-8 ru_RU.UTF-8
localedef -i tr_TR -f UTF-8 tr_TR.UTF-8
localedef -i zh_CN -f GB18030 zh_CN.GB18030

In addition, install the locale for your own country, language and character set.

Alternatively, install all locales listed in the glibc-2.22/localedata/SUPPORTED file (it includes every locale listed above and many more) at once with the following time-consuming command:

make localedata/install-locales

Then use the localedef command to create and install locales not listed in the glibc-2.22/localedata/SUPPORTED file in the unlikely case you need them.

6.9.2. Configuring Glibc

6.9.2.1. Adding nsswitch.conf

The /etc/nsswitch.conf file needs to be created because the Glibc defaults do not work well in a networked environment.

Create a new file /etc/nsswitch.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/nsswitch.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files
group: files
shadow: files

hosts: files dns myhostname
networks: files

protocols: files
services: files
ethers: files
rpc: files

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf
EOF

6.9.2.2. Adding time zone data

Install and set up the timezone data with the following:

tar -xf ../tzdata2015f.tar.gz

ZONEINFO=/usr/share/zoneinfo
mkdir -pv $ZONEINFO/{posix,right}

for tz in etcetera southamerica northamerica europe africa antarctica  \
          asia australasia backward pacificnew systemv; do
    zic -L /dev/null   -d $ZONEINFO       -y "sh yearistype.sh" ${tz}
    zic -L /dev/null   -d $ZONEINFO/posix -y "sh yearistype.sh" ${tz}
    zic -L leapseconds -d $ZONEINFO/right -y "sh yearistype.sh" ${tz}
done

cp -v zone.tab zone1970.tab iso3166.tab $ZONEINFO
zic -d $ZONEINFO -p America/New_York
unset ZONEINFO

The meaning of the zic commands:

zic -L /dev/null ...

This creates posix timezones, without any leap seconds. It is conventional to put these in both zoneinfo and zoneinfo/posix. It is necessary to put the POSIX timezones in zoneinfo, otherwise various test-suites will report errors. On an embedded system, where space is tight and you do not intend to ever update the timezones, you could save 1.9MB by not using the posix directory, but some applications or test-suites might produce some failures.

zic -L leapseconds ...

This creates right timezones, including leap seconds. On an embedded system, where space is tight and you do not intend to ever update the timezones, or care about the correct time, you could save 1.9MB by omitting the right directory.

zic ... -p ...

This creates the posixrules file. We use New York because POSIX requires the daylight savings time rules to be in accordance with US rules.

One way to determine the local time zone is to run the following script:

tzselect

After answering a few questions about the location, the script will output the name of the time zone (e.g., America/Edmonton). There are also some other possible timezones listed in /usr/share/zoneinfo such as Canada/Eastern or EST5EDT that are not identified by the script but can be used.

Then create the /etc/localtime file by running:

ln -sfv /usr/share/zoneinfo/<xxx> /etc/localtime

Replace <xxx> with the name of the time zone selected (e.g., Canada/Eastern).

6.9.2.3. Configuring the Dynamic Loader

By default, the dynamic loader (/lib/ld-linux.so.2) searches through /lib and /usr/lib for dynamic libraries that are needed by programs as they are run. However, if there are libraries in directories other than /lib and /usr/lib, these need to be added to the /etc/ld.so.conf file in order for the dynamic loader to find them. Two directories that are commonly known to contain additional libraries are /usr/local/lib and /opt/lib, so add those directories to the dynamic loader's search path.

Create a new file /etc/ld.so.conf by running the following:

cat > /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/ld.so.conf
/usr/local/lib
/opt/lib

EOF

If desired, the dynamic loader can also search a directory and include the contents of files found there. Generally the files in this include directory are one line specifying the desired library path. To add this capability run the following commands:

cat >> /etc/ld.so.conf << "EOF"
# Add an include directory
include /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*.conf

EOF
mkdir -pv /etc/ld.so.conf.d

6.9.3. Contents of Glibc

Installed programs: catchsegv, gencat, getconf, getent, iconv, iconvconfig, ldconfig, ldd, lddlibc4, locale, localedef, makedb, mtrace, nscd, pcprofiledump, pldd, rpcgen, sln, sotruss, sprof, tzselect, xtrace, zdump, and zic
Installed libraries: ld-2.22.so, libBrokenLocale.{a,so}, libSegFault.so, libanl.{a,so}, libc.{a,so}, libc_nonshared.a, libcidn.so, libcrypt.{a,so}, libdl.{a,so}, libg.a, libieee.a, libm.{a,so}, libmcheck.a, libmemusage.so, libnsl.{a,so}, libnss_compat.so, libnss_dns.so, libnss_files.so, libnss_hesiod.so, libnss_nis.so, libnss_nisplus.so, libpcprofile.so, libpthread.{a,so}, libpthread_nonshared.a, libresolv.{a,so}, librpcsvc.a, librt.{a,so}, libthread_db.so, and libutil.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/arpa, /usr/include/bits, /usr/include/gnu, /usr/include/net, /usr/include/netash, /usr/include/netatalk, /usr/include/netax25, /usr/include/neteconet, /usr/include/netinet, /usr/include/netipx, /usr/include/netiucv, /usr/include/netpacket, /usr/include/netrom, /usr/include/netrose, /usr/include/nfs, /usr/include/protocols, /usr/include/rpc, /usr/include/rpcsvc, /usr/include/sys, /usr/lib/audit, /usr/lib/gconv, /usr/lib/locale, /usr/libexec/getconf, /usr/share/i18n, /usr/share/zoneinfo, /var/cache/nscd, and /var/lib/nss_db

Short Descriptions

catchsegv

Can be used to create a stack trace when a program terminates with a segmentation fault

gencat

Generates message catalogues

getconf

Displays the system configuration values for file system specific variables

getent

Gets entries from an administrative database

iconv

Performs character set conversion

iconvconfig

Creates fastloading iconv module configuration files

ldconfig

Configures the dynamic linker runtime bindings

ldd

Reports which shared libraries are required by each given program or shared library

lddlibc4

Assists ldd with object files

locale

Prints various information about the current locale

localedef

Compiles locale specifications

makedb

Creates a simple database from textual input

mtrace

Reads and interprets a memory trace file and displays a summary in human-readable format

nscd

A daemon that provides a cache for the most common name service requests

pcprofiledump

Dumps information generated by PC profiling

pldd

Lists dynamic shared objects used by running processes

rpcgen

Generates C code to implement the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol

sln

A statically linked ln program

sotruss

Traces shared library procedure calls of a specified command

sprof

Reads and displays shared object profiling data

tzselect

Asks the user about the location of the system and reports the corresponding time zone description

xtrace

Traces the execution of a program by printing the currently executed function

zdump

The time zone dumper

zic

The time zone compiler

ld-2.22.so

The helper program for shared library executables

libBrokenLocale

Used internally by Glibc as a gross hack to get broken programs (e.g., some Motif applications) running. See comments in glibc-2.22/locale/broken_cur_max.c for more information

libSegFault

The segmentation fault signal handler, used by catchsegv

libanl

An asynchronous name lookup library

libc

The main C library

libcidn

Used internally by Glibc for handling internationalized domain names in the getaddrinfo() function

libcrypt

The cryptography library

libdl

The dynamic linking interface library

libg

Dummy library containing no functions. Previously was a runtime library for g++

libieee

Linking in this module forces error handling rules for math functions as defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The default is POSIX.1 error handling

libm

The mathematical library

libmcheck

Turns on memory allocation checking when linked to

libmemusage

Used by memusage to help collect information about the memory usage of a program

libnsl

The network services library

libnss

The Name Service Switch libraries, containing functions for resolving host names, user names, group names, aliases, services, protocols, etc.

libpcprofile

Contains profiling functions used to track the amount of CPU time spent in specific source code lines

libpthread

The POSIX threads library

libresolv

Contains functions for creating, sending, and interpreting packets to the Internet domain name servers

librpcsvc

Contains functions providing miscellaneous RPC services

librt

Contains functions providing most of the interfaces specified by the POSIX.1b Realtime Extension

libthread_db

Contains functions useful for building debuggers for multi-threaded programs

libutil

Contains code for standard functions used in many different Unix utilities

6.10. Adjusting the Toolchain

Now that the final C libraries have been installed, it is time to adjust the toolchain so that it will link any newly compiled program against these new libraries.

First, backup the /tools linker, and replace it with the adjusted linker we made in chapter 5. We'll also create a link to its counterpart in /tools/$(gcc -dumpmachine)/bin:

mv -v /tools/bin/{ld,ld-old}
mv -v /tools/$(gcc -dumpmachine)/bin/{ld,ld-old}
mv -v /tools/bin/{ld-new,ld}
ln -sv /tools/bin/ld /tools/$(gcc -dumpmachine)/bin/ld

Next, amend the GCC specs file so that it points to the new dynamic linker. Simply deleting all instances of /tools should leave us with the correct path to the dynamic linker. Also adjust the specs file so that GCC knows where to find the correct headers and Glibc start files. A sed command accomplishes this:

gcc -dumpspecs | sed -e 's@/tools@@g'                   \
    -e '/\*startfile_prefix_spec:/{n;s@.*@/usr/lib/ @}' \
    -e '/\*cpp:/{n;s@$@ -isystem /usr/include@}' >      \
    `dirname $(gcc --print-libgcc-file-name)`/specs

It is a good idea to visually inspect the specs file to verify the intended change was actually made.

It is imperative at this point to ensure that the basic functions (compiling and linking) of the adjusted toolchain are working as expected. To do this, perform the following sanity checks:

echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c
cc dummy.c -v -Wl,--verbose &> dummy.log
readelf -l a.out | grep ': /lib'

There should be no errors, and the output of the last command will be (allowing for platform-specific differences in dynamic linker name):

[Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Note that /lib is now the prefix of our dynamic linker.

Now make sure that we're setup to use the correct startfiles:

grep -o '/usr/lib.*/crt[1in].*succeeded' dummy.log

The output of the last command should be:

/usr/lib/crt1.o succeeded
/usr/lib/crti.o succeeded
/usr/lib/crtn.o succeeded

Verify that the compiler is searching for the correct header files:

grep -B1 '^ /usr/include' dummy.log

This command should return the following output:

#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/include

Next, verify that the new linker is being used with the correct search paths:

grep 'SEARCH.*/usr/lib' dummy.log |sed 's|; |\n|g'

References to paths that have components with '-linux-gnu' should be ignored, but otherwise the output of the last command should be:

SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/lib");

Next make sure that we're using the correct libc:

grep "/lib.*/libc.so.6 " dummy.log

The output of the last command (allowing for a lib64 directory on 64-bit hosts) should be:

attempt to open /lib/libc.so.6 succeeded

Lastly, make sure GCC is using the correct dynamic linker:

grep found dummy.log

The output of the last command should be (allowing for platform-specific differences in dynamic linker name and a lib64 directory on 64-bit hosts):

found ld-linux.so.2 at /lib/ld-linux.so.2

If the output does not appear as shown above or is not received at all, then something is seriously wrong. Investigate and retrace the steps to find out where the problem is and correct it. The most likely reason is that something went wrong with the specs file adjustment. Any issues will need to be resolved before continuing on with the process.

Once everything is working correctly, clean up the test files:

rm -v dummy.c a.out dummy.log

6.11. Zlib-1.2.8

The Zlib package contains compression and decompression routines used by some programs.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 4.0 MB

6.11.1. Installation of Zlib

Prepare Zlib for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

The shared library needs to be moved to /lib, and as a result the .so file in /usr/lib will need to be recreated:

mv -v /usr/lib/libz.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libz.so) /usr/lib/libz.so

6.11.2. Contents of Zlib

Installed libraries: libz.{a,so}

Short Descriptions

libz

Contains compression and decompression functions used by some programs

6.12. File-5.24

The File package contains a utility for determining the type of a given file or files.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 14 MB

6.12.1. Installation of File

Prepare File for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

6.12.2. Contents of File

Installed programs: file
Installed library: libmagic.so

Short Descriptions

file

Tries to classify each given file; it does this by performing several tests—file system tests, magic number tests, and language tests

libmagic

Contains routines for magic number recognition, used by the file program

6.13. Binutils-2.25.1

The Binutils package contains a linker, an assembler, and other tools for handling object files.

Approximate build time: 2.4 SBU
Required disk space: 451 MB

6.13.1. Installation of Binutils

Verify that the PTYs are working properly inside the chroot environment by performing a simple test:

expect -c "spawn ls"

This command should output the following:

spawn ls

If, instead, the output includes the message below, then the environment is not set up for proper PTY operation. This issue needs to be resolved before running the test suites for Binutils and GCC:

The system has no more ptys.
Ask your system administrator to create more.

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build

Prepare Binutils for compilation:

../binutils-2.25.1/configure --prefix=/usr   \
                           --enable-shared \
                           --disable-werror

Compile the package:

make tooldir=/usr

The meaning of the make parameter:

tooldir=/usr

Normally, the tooldir (the directory where the executables will ultimately be located) is set to $(exec_prefix)/$(target_alias). For example, x86_64 machines would expand that to /usr/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu. Because this is a custom system, this target-specific directory in /usr is not required. $(exec_prefix)/$(target_alias) would be used if the system was used to cross-compile (for example, compiling a package on an Intel machine that generates code that can be executed on PowerPC machines).

Important

The test suite for Binutils in this section is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstances.

Test the results:

make check

Install the package:

make tooldir=/usr install

6.13.2. Contents of Binutils

Installed programs: addr2line, ar, as, c++filt, elfedit, gprof, ld, ld.bfd, nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, readelf, size, strings, and strip
Installed libraries: libbfd.{a,so} and libopcodes.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/lib/ldscripts

Short Descriptions

addr2line

Translates program addresses to file names and line numbers; given an address and the name of an executable, it uses the debugging information in the executable to determine which source file and line number are associated with the address

ar

Creates, modifies, and extracts from archives

as

An assembler that assembles the output of gcc into object files

c++filt

Used by the linker to de-mangle C++ and Java symbols and to keep overloaded functions from clashing

elfedit

Updates the ELF header of ELF files

gprof

Displays call graph profile data

ld

A linker that combines a number of object and archive files into a single file, relocating their data and tying up symbol references

ld.bfd

Hard link to ld

nm

Lists the symbols occurring in a given object file

objcopy

Translates one type of object file into another

objdump

Displays information about the given object file, with options controlling the particular information to display; the information shown is useful to programmers who are working on the compilation tools

ranlib

Generates an index of the contents of an archive and stores it in the archive; the index lists all of the symbols defined by archive members that are relocatable object files

readelf

Displays information about ELF type binaries

size

Lists the section sizes and the total size for the given object files

strings

Outputs, for each given file, the sequences of printable characters that are of at least the specified length (defaulting to four); for object files, it prints, by default, only the strings from the initializing and loading sections while for other types of files, it scans the entire file

strip

Discards symbols from object files

libbfd

The Binary File Descriptor library

libopcodes

A library for dealing with opcodes—the readable text versions of instructions for the processor; it is used for building utilities like objdump

6.14. GMP-6.0.0a

The GMP package contains math libraries. These have useful functions for arbitrary precision arithmetic.

Approximate build time: 1.3 SBU
Required disk space: 57 MB

6.14.1. Installation of GMP

Note

If you are building for 32-bit x86, but you have a CPU which is capable of running 64-bit code and you have specified CFLAGS in the environment, the configure script will attempt to configure for 64-bits and fail. Avoid this by invoking the configure command below with

ABI=32 ./configure ...

Prepare GMP for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --enable-cxx     \
            --disable-static \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/gmp-6.0.0a

The meaning of the new configure options:

--enable-cxx

This parameter enables C++ support

--docdir=/usr/share/doc/gmp-6.0.0a

This variable specifies the correct place for the documentation.

Compile the package and generate the HTML documentation:

make
make html

Important

The test suite for GMP in this section is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstances.

Test the results:

make check 2>&1 | tee gmp-check-log

Ensure that all 188 tests in the test suite passed. Check the results by issuing the following command:

awk '/tests passed/{total+=$2} ; END{print total}' gmp-check-log

Install the package and its documentation:

make install
make install-html

6.14.2. Contents of GMP

Installed Libraries: libgmp.{a,so} and libgmpxx.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/gmp-6.0.0a

Short Descriptions

libgmp

Contains precision math functions

libgmpxx

Contains C++ precision math functions

6.15. MPFR-3.1.3

The MPFR package contains functions for multiple precision math.

Approximate build time: 0.9 SBU
Required disk space: 47 MB

6.15.1. Installation of MPFR

First, apply the following patch to fix various bugs that have been addressed upstream:

patch -Np1 -i ../mpfr-3.1.3-upstream_fixes-1.patch

Prepare MPFR for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr        \
            --disable-static     \
            --enable-thread-safe \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/mpfr-3.1.3

Compile the package and generate the HTML documentation:

make
make html

Important

The test suite for MPFR in this section is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstances.

Test the results and ensure that all tests passed:

make check

Install the package and its documentation:

make install
make install-html

6.15.2. Contents of MPFR

Installed Libraries: libmpfr.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/mpfr-3.1.3

Short Descriptions

libmpfr

Contains multiple-precision math functions

6.16. MPC-1.0.3

The MPC package contains a library for the arithmetic of complex numbers with arbitrarily high precision and correct rounding of the result.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 18 MB

6.16.1. Installation of MPC

Prepare MPC for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --disable-static \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/mpc-1.0.3

Compile the package and generate the HTML documentation:

make
make html

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package and its documentation:

make install
make install-html

6.16.2. Contents of MPC

Installed Libraries: libmpc.{a,so}
Installed Directory: /usr/share/doc/mpc-1.0.3

Short Descriptions

libmpc

Contains complex math functions

6.17. GCC-5.2.0

The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.

Approximate build time: 95.5 SBU (with tests)
Required disk space: 311 GB

6.17.1. Installation of GCC

The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

mkdir -v ../gcc-build
cd ../gcc-build

Prepare GCC for compilation:

SED=sed                       \
../gcc-5.2.0/configure        \
     --prefix=/usr            \
     --enable-languages=c,c++ \
     --disable-multilib       \
     --disable-bootstrap      \
     --with-system-zlib

Note that for other languages, there are some prerequisites that are not yet available. See the BLFS Book for instructions on how to build all of GCC's supported languages.

The meaning of the new configure option:

SED=sed

Setting this environment variable prevents a hard-coded path to /tools/bin/sed.

--with-system-zlib

This switch tells GCC to link to the system installed copy of the Zlib library, rather than its own internal copy.

Compile the package:

make

Important

In this section, the test suite for GCC is considered critical. Do not skip it under any circumstance.

One set of tests in the GCC test suite is known to exhaust the stack, so increase the stack size prior to running the tests:

ulimit -s 32768

Test the results, but do not stop at errors:

make -k check

To receive a summary of the test suite results, run:

../gcc-5.2.0/contrib/test_summary

For only the summaries, pipe the output through grep -A7 Summ.

Results can be compared with those located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/build-logs/systemd/ and http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-testresults/.

A few unexpected failures cannot always be avoided. The GCC developers are usually aware of these issues, but have not resolved them yet. In particular, one test in the libgomp test suite is known to fail. Unless the test results are vastly different from those at the above URL, it is safe to continue.

Install the package:

make install

Some packages expect the C preprocessor to be installed in the /lib directory. To support those packages, create this symlink:

ln -sv ../usr/bin/cpp /lib

Many packages use the name cc to call the C compiler. To satisfy those packages, create a symlink:

ln -sv gcc /usr/bin/cc

Add a compatibility symlink to enable building programs with Link Time Optimization (LTO):

install -v -dm755 /usr/lib/bfd-plugins
ln -sfv ../../libexec/gcc/$(gcc -dumpmachine)/5.2.0/liblto_plugin.so /usr/lib/bfd-plugins/

Now that our final toolchain is in place, it is important to again ensure that compiling and linking will work as expected. We do this by performing the same sanity checks as we did earlier in the chapter:

echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c
cc dummy.c -v -Wl,--verbose &> dummy.log
readelf -l a.out | grep ': /lib'

There should be no errors, and the output of the last command will be (allowing for platform-specific differences in dynamic linker name):

[Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Now make sure that we're setup to use the correct startfiles:

grep -o '/usr/lib.*/crt[1in].*succeeded' dummy.log

The output of the last command should be:

/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/5.2.0/../../../crt1.o succeeded
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/5.2.0/../../../crti.o succeeded
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/5.2.0/../../../crtn.o succeeded

Depending on your machine architecture, the above may differ slightly, the difference usually being the name of the directory after /usr/lib/gcc. If your machine is a 64-bit system, you may also see a directory named lib64 towards the end of the string. The important thing to look for here is that gcc has found all three crt*.o files under the /usr/lib directory.

Verify that the compiler is searching for the correct header files:

grep -B4 '^ /usr/include' dummy.log

This command should return the following output:

#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/5.2.0/include
 /usr/local/include
 /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/5.2.0/include-fixed
 /usr/include

Again, note that the directory named after your target triplet may be different than the above, depending on your architecture.

Note

As of version 4.3.0, GCC now unconditionally installs the limits.h file into the private include-fixed directory, and that directory is required to be in place.

Next, verify that the new linker is being used with the correct search paths:

grep 'SEARCH.*/usr/lib' dummy.log |sed 's|; |\n|g'

References to paths that have components with '-linux-gnu' should be ignored, but otherwise the output of the last command should be:

SEARCH_DIR("/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/lib32")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib32")
SEARCH_DIR("/lib32")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib32")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib");

A 64-bit system may see a few different directories. For example, here is the output from an x86_64 machine:

SEARCH_DIR("/usr/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib64")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib64")
SEARCH_DIR("/lib64")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib64")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/local/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/lib")
SEARCH_DIR("/usr/lib");

Next make sure that we're using the correct libc:

grep "/lib.*/libc.so.6 " dummy.log

The output of the last command (allowing for a lib64 directory on 64-bit hosts) should be:

attempt to open /lib/libc.so.6 succeeded

Lastly, make sure GCC is using the correct dynamic linker:

grep found dummy.log

The output of the last command should be (allowing for platform-specific differences in dynamic linker name and a lib64 directory on 64-bit hosts):

found ld-linux.so.2 at /lib/ld-linux.so.2

If the output does not appear as shown above or is not received at all, then something is seriously wrong. Investigate and retrace the steps to find out where the problem is and correct it. The most likely reason is that something went wrong with the specs file adjustment. Any issues will need to be resolved before continuing on with the process.

Once everything is working correctly, clean up the test files:

rm -v dummy.c a.out dummy.log

Finally, move a misplaced file:

mkdir -pv /usr/share/gdb/auto-load/usr/lib
mv -v /usr/lib/*gdb.py /usr/share/gdb/auto-load/usr/lib

6.17.2. Contents of GCC

Installed programs: c++, cc (link to gcc), cpp, g++, gcc, gcc-ar, gcc-nm, gcc-ranlib, and gcov
Installed libraries: libasan.{a,so}, libatomic.{a,so}, libgcc.a, libgcc_eh.a, libgcc_s.so, libgcov.a, libgomp.{a,so}, libiberty.a, libitm.{a,so}, liblto_plugin.so, libquadmath.{a,so}, libssp.{a,so}, libssp_nonshared.a, libstdc++.{a,so}, libsupc++.a, and libtsan.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/c++, /usr/lib/gcc, /usr/libexec/gcc, and /usr/share/gcc-5.2.0

Short Descriptions

c++

The C++ compiler

cc

The C compiler

cpp

The C preprocessor; it is used by the compiler to expand the #include, #define, and similar statements in the source files

g++

The C++ compiler

gcc

The C compiler

gcc-ar

A wrapper around ar that adds a plugin to the command line. This program is only used to add "link time optization" and is not useful with the default build options

gcc-nm

A wrapper around nm that adds a plugin to the command line. This program is only used to add "link time optization" and is not useful with the default build options

gcc-ranlib

A wrapper around ranlib that adds a plugin to the command line. This program is only used to add "link time optization" and is not useful with the default build options

gcov

A coverage testing tool; it is used to analyze programs to determine where optimizations will have the most effect

libasan

The Address Sanitizer runtime library

libgcc

Contains run-time support for gcc

libgcov

This library is linked in to a program when GCC is instructed to enable profiling

libgomp

GNU implementation of the OpenMP API for multi-platform shared-memory parallel programming in C/C++ and Fortran

libiberty

Contains routines used by various GNU programs, including getopt, obstack, strerror, strtol, and strtoul

liblto_plugin

GCC's Link Time Optimization (LTO) plugin allows GCC to perform optimizations across compilation units

libquadmath

GCC Quad Precision Math Library API

libssp

Contains routines supporting GCC's stack-smashing protection functionality

libstdc++

The standard C++ library

libsupc++

Provides supporting routines for the C++ programming language

libtsan

The Thread Sanitizer runtime library

6.18. Bzip2-1.0.6

The Bzip2 package contains programs for compressing and decompressing files. Compressing text files with bzip2 yields a much better compression percentage than with the traditional gzip.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 1.6 MB

6.18.1. Installation of Bzip2

Apply a patch that will install the documentation for this package:

patch -Np1 -i ../bzip2-1.0.6-install_docs-1.patch

The following command ensures installation of symbolic links are relative:

sed -i 's@\(ln -s -f \)$(PREFIX)/bin/@\1@' Makefile

Ensure the man pages are installed into the correct location:

sed -i "s@(PREFIX)/man@(PREFIX)/share/man@g" Makefile

Prepare Bzip2 for compilation with:

make -f Makefile-libbz2_so
make clean

The meaning of the make parameter:

-f Makefile-libbz2_so

This will cause Bzip2 to be built using a different Makefile file, in this case the Makefile-libbz2_so file, which creates a dynamic libbz2.so library and links the Bzip2 utilities against it.

Compile and test the package:

make

Install the programs:

make PREFIX=/usr install

Install the shared bzip2 binary into the /bin directory, make some necessary symbolic links, and clean up:

cp -v bzip2-shared /bin/bzip2
cp -av libbz2.so* /lib
ln -sv ../../lib/libbz2.so.1.0 /usr/lib/libbz2.so
rm -v /usr/bin/{bunzip2,bzcat,bzip2}
ln -sv bzip2 /bin/bunzip2
ln -sv bzip2 /bin/bzcat

6.18.2. Contents of Bzip2

Installed programs: bunzip2 (link to bzip2), bzcat (link to bzip2), bzcmp (link to bzdiff), bzdiff, bzegrep (link to bzgrep), bzfgrep (link to bzgrep), bzgrep, bzip2, bzip2recover, bzless (link to bzmore), and bzmore
Installed libraries: libbz2.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/bzip2-1.0.6

Short Descriptions

bunzip2

Decompresses bzipped files

bzcat

Decompresses to standard output

bzcmp

Runs cmp on bzipped files

bzdiff

Runs diff on bzipped files

bzegrep

Runs egrep on bzipped files

bzfgrep

Runs fgrep on bzipped files

bzgrep

Runs grep on bzipped files

bzip2

Compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting text compression algorithm with Huffman coding; the compression rate is better than that achieved by more conventional compressors using Lempel-Ziv algorithms, like gzip

bzip2recover

Tries to recover data from damaged bzipped files

bzless

Runs less on bzipped files

bzmore

Runs more on bzipped files

libbz2

The library implementing lossless, block-sorting data compression, using the Burrows-Wheeler algorithm

6.19. Pkg-config-0.28

The pkg-config package contains a tool for passing the include path and/or library paths to build tools during the configure and make file execution.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 30 MB

6.19.1. Installation of Pkg-config

Prepare Pkg-config for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr        \
            --with-internal-glib \
            --disable-host-tool  \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/pkg-config-0.28

The meaning of the new configure options:

--with-internal-glib

This will allow pkg-config to use its internal version of Glib because an external version is not available in LFS.

--disable-host-tool

This option disables the creation of an undesired hard link to the pkg-config program.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

6.19.2. Contents of Pkg-config

Installed program: pkg-config
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/pkg-config-0.28

Short Descriptions

pkg-config

returns meta information for the specified library or package

6.20. Ncurses-6.0

The Ncurses package contains libraries for terminal-independent handling of character screens.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 39 MB

6.20.1. Installation of Ncurses

Don't install a static library that is not handled by configure:

sed -i '/LIBTOOL_INSTALL/d' c++/Makefile.in

Prepare Ncurses for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr           \
            --mandir=/usr/share/man \
            --with-shared           \
            --without-debug         \
            --without-normal        \
            --enable-pc-files       \
            --enable-widec

The meaning of the new configure options:

--enable-widec

This switch causes wide-character libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so.6.0) to be built instead of normal ones (e.g., libncurses.so.6.0). These wide-character libraries are usable in both multibyte and traditional 8-bit locales, while normal libraries work properly only in 8-bit locales. Wide-character and normal libraries are source-compatible, but not binary-compatible.

--enable-pc-files

This switch generates and installs .pc files for pkg-config.

--without-normal

This switch disables building and installing most static libraries.

Compile the package:

make

This package has a test suite, but it can only be run after the package has been installed. The tests reside in the test/ directory. See the README file in that directory for further details.

Install the package:

make install

Move the shared libraries to the /lib directory, where they are expected to reside:

mv -v /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6* /lib

Because the libraries have been moved, one symlink points to a non-existent file. Recreate it:

ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libncursesw.so) /usr/lib/libncursesw.so

Many applications still expect the linker to be able to find non-wide-character Ncurses libraries. Trick such applications into linking with wide-character libraries by means of symlinks and linker scripts:

for lib in ncurses form panel menu ; do
    rm -vf                    /usr/lib/lib${lib}.so
    echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" > /usr/lib/lib${lib}.so
    ln -sfv ${lib}w.pc        /usr/lib/pkgconfig/${lib}.pc
done

Finally, make sure that old applications that look for -lcurses at build time are still buildable:

rm -vf                     /usr/lib/libcursesw.so
echo "INPUT(-lncursesw)" > /usr/lib/libcursesw.so
ln -sfv libncurses.so      /usr/lib/libcurses.so

If desired, install the Ncurses documentation:

mkdir -v       /usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.0
cp -v -R doc/* /usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.0

Note

The instructions above don't create non-wide-character Ncurses libraries since no package installed by compiling from sources would link against them at runtime. However, the only known binary-only applications that link against non-wide-character Ncurses libraries require version 5. If you must have such libraries because of some binary-only application or to be compliant with LSB, build the package again with the following commands:

make distclean
./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --with-shared    \
            --without-normal \
            --without-debug  \
            --without-cxx-binding \
            --with-abi-version=5
make sources libs
cp -av lib/lib*.so.5* /usr/lib

6.20.2. Contents of Ncurses

Installed programs: captoinfo (link to tic), clear, infocmp, infotocap (link to tic), ncursesw5-config, reset (link to tset), tabs, tic, toe, tput, and tset
Installed libraries: libcursesw.so (symlink and linker script to libncursesw.so), libformw.so, libmenuw.so, libncursesw.so, libpanelw.so, and their non-wide-character counterparts without "w" in the library names.
Installed directories: /usr/share/tabset, /usr/share/terminfo, and /usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.0

Short Descriptions

captoinfo

Converts a termcap description into a terminfo description

clear

Clears the screen, if possible

infocmp

Compares or prints out terminfo descriptions

infotocap

Converts a terminfo description into a termcap description

ncursesw5-config

Provides configuration information for ncurses

reset

Reinitializes a terminal to its default values

tabs

Clears and sets tab stops on a terminal

tic

The terminfo entry-description compiler that translates a terminfo file from source format into the binary format needed for the ncurses library routines [A terminfo file contains information on the capabilities of a certain terminal.]

toe

Lists all available terminal types, giving the primary name and description for each

tput

Makes the values of terminal-dependent capabilities available to the shell; it can also be used to reset or initialize a terminal or report its long name

tset

Can be used to initialize terminals

libcursesw

A link to libncursesw

libncursesw

Contains functions to display text in many complex ways on a terminal screen; a good example of the use of these functions is the menu displayed during the kernel's make menuconfig

libformw

Contains functions to implement forms

libmenuw

Contains functions to implement menus

libpanelw

Contains functions to implement panels

6.21. Attr-2.4.47

The attr package contains utilities to administer the extended attributes on filesystem objects.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 3.4 MB

6.21.1. Installation of Attr

Modify the documentation directory so that it is a versioned directory:

sed -i -e 's|/@pkg_name@|&-@pkg_version@|' include/builddefs.in

Prevent installation of manual pages that were already installed by the man pages package:

sed -i -e "/SUBDIRS/s|man2||" man/Makefile

Prepare Attr for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static

Compile the package:

make

The tests need to be run on a filesystem that supports extended attributes such as the ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystems. The tests are also known to fail if running multiple simultaneous tests (-j option greater than 1). To test the results, issue:

make -j1 tests root-tests

Install the package:

make install install-dev install-lib
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/libattr.so

The shared library needs to be moved to /lib, and as a result the .so file in /usr/lib will need to be recreated:

mv -v /usr/lib/libattr.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libattr.so) /usr/lib/libattr.so

6.21.2. Contents of Attr

Installed programs: attr, getfattr, and setattr
Installed library: libattr.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/attr and /usr/share/doc/attr-2.4.47

Short Descriptions

attr

Extends attributes on filesystem objects

getfattr

Gets the extended attributes of filesystem objects

setattr

Sets the extended attributes of filesystem objects

libattr

Contains the libbrary functions for manipulating extended attributes

6.22. Acl-2.2.52

The Acl package contains utilities to administer Access Control Lists, which are used to define more fine-grained discretionary access rights for files and directories.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 5.0 MB

6.22.1. Installation of Acl

Modify the documentation directory so that it is a versioned directory:

sed -i -e 's|/@pkg_name@|&-@pkg_version@|' include/builddefs.in

Fix some broken tests:

sed -i "s:| sed.*::g" test/{sbits-restore,cp,misc}.test

Additionally, fix a bug that causes getfacl -e to segfault on overly long group name:

sed -i -e "/TABS-1;/a if (x > (TABS-1)) x = (TABS-1);" \
    libacl/__acl_to_any_text.c

Prepare Acl for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --disable-static \
            --libexecdir=/usr/lib

Compile the package:

make

The Acl tests need to be run on a filesystem that supports access controls after Coreutils has been built with the Acl libraries. If desired, return to this package and run make -j1 tests after Coreutils has been built later in this chapter.

Install the package:

make install install-dev install-lib
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/libacl.so

The shared library needs to be moved to /lib, and as a result the .so file in /usr/lib will need to be recreated:

mv -v /usr/lib/libacl.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libacl.so) /usr/lib/libacl.so

6.22.2. Contents of Acl

Installed programs: chacl, getfacl, and setacl
Installed library: libacl.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/acl and /usr/share/doc/acl-2.2.52

Short Descriptions

chacl

Changes the access control list of a file or directory

getfacl

Gets file access control lists

setacl

Sets file access control lists

libacl

Contains the library functions for manipulating Access Control Lists

6.23. Libcap-2.24

The Libcap package implements the user-space interfaces to the POSIX 1003.1e capabilities available in Linux kernels. These capabilities are a partitioning of the all powerful root privilege into a set of distinct privileges.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 1.4 MB

6.23.1. Installation of Libcap

Prevent a static library from being installed:

sed -i '/install.*STALIBNAME/d' libcap/Makefile

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make RAISE_SETFCAP=no prefix=/usr install
chmod -v 755 /usr/lib/libcap.so

The meaning of the make option:

RAISE_SETFCAP=no

This parameter skips trying to use setcap on itself. This avoids an installation error if the kernel or file system does not support extended capabilities.

The shared library needs to be moved to /lib, and as a result the .so file in /usr/lib will need to be recreated:

mv -v /usr/lib/libcap.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libcap.so) /usr/lib/libcap.so

6.23.2. Contents of Libcap

Installed programs: capsh, getcap, getpcaps, and setcap
Installed library: libcap.{a,so}

Short Descriptions

capsh

A shell wrapper to explore and constrain capability support

getcap

Examines file capabilities

getpcaps

Displays the capabilities on the queried process(es)

libcap

Contains the library functions for manipulating POSIX 1003.1e capabilities

6.24. Sed-4.2.2

The Sed package contains a stream editor.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 11 MB

6.24.1. Installation of Sed

Prepare Sed for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin --htmldir=/usr/share/doc/sed-4.2.2

The meaning of the new configure option:

--htmldir

This sets the installation directory for the HTML documentation.

Compile the package and generate the HTML documentation:

make
make html

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package and its documentation:

make install
make -C doc install-html

6.24.2. Contents of Sed

Installed program: sed
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/sed-4.2.2

Short Descriptions

sed

Filters and transforms text files in a single pass

6.25. Shadow-4.2.1

The Shadow package contains programs for handling passwords in a secure way.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 43 MB

6.25.1. Installation of Shadow

Note

If you would like to enforce the use of strong passwords, refer to http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/systemd/postlfs/cracklib.html for installing CrackLib prior to building Shadow. Then add --with-libcrack to the configure command below.

Disable the installation of the groups program and its man pages, as Coreutils provides a better version:

sed -i 's/groups$(EXEEXT) //' src/Makefile.in
find man -name Makefile.in -exec sed -i 's/groups\.1 / /' {} \;

Instead of using the default crypt method, use the more secure SHA-512 method of password encryption, which also allows passwords longer than 8 characters. It is also necessary to change the obsolete /var/spool/mail location for user mailboxes that Shadow uses by default to the /var/mail location used currently:

sed -i -e 's@#ENCRYPT_METHOD DES@ENCRYPT_METHOD SHA512@' \
       -e 's@/var/spool/mail@/var/mail@' etc/login.defs

Note

If you chose to build Shadow with Cracklib support, run the following:

sed -i 's@DICTPATH.*@DICTPATH\t/lib/cracklib/pw_dict@' etc/login.defs

Make a minor change to make the default useradd consistent with the LFS groups file:

sed -i 's/1000/999/' etc/useradd

Prepare Shadow for compilation:

./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --with-group-name-max-length=32

The meaning of the configure option:

--with-group-name-max-length=32

The maximum user name is 32 characters. Make the maximum group name the same.

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Move a misplaced program to its proper location:

mv -v /usr/bin/passwd /bin

6.25.2. Configuring Shadow

This package contains utilities to add, modify, and delete users and groups; set and change their passwords; and perform other administrative tasks. For a full explanation of what password shadowing means, see the doc/HOWTO file within the unpacked source tree. If using Shadow support, keep in mind that programs which need to verify passwords (display managers, FTP programs, pop3 daemons, etc.) must be Shadow-compliant. That is, they need to be able to work with shadowed passwords.

To enable shadowed passwords, run the following command:

pwconv

To enable shadowed group passwords, run:

grpconv

Shadow's stock configuration for the useradd utility has a few caveats that need some explanation. First, the default action for the useradd utility is to create the user and a group of the same name as the user. By default the user ID (UID) and group ID (GID) numbers will begin with 1000. This means if you don't pass parameters to useradd, each user will be a member of a unique group on the system. If this behaviour is undesirable, you'll need to pass the -g parameter to useradd. The default parameters are stored in the /etc/default/useradd file. You may need to modify two parameters in this file to suit your particular needs.

/etc/default/useradd Parameter Explanations

GROUP=1000

This parameter sets the beginning of the group numbers used in the /etc/group file. You can modify it to anything you desire. Note that useradd will never reuse a UID or GID. If the number identified in this parameter is used, it will use the next available number after this. Note also that if you don't have a group 1000 on your system the first time you use useradd without the -g parameter, you'll get a message displayed on the terminal that says: useradd: unknown GID 1000. You may disregard this message and group number 1000 will be used.

CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=yes

This parameter causes useradd to create a mailbox file for the newly created user. useradd will make the group ownership of this file to the mail group with 0660 permissions. If you would prefer that these mailbox files are not created by useradd, issue the following command:

sed -i 's/yes/no/' /etc/default/useradd

6.25.3. Setting the root password

Choose a password for user root and set it by running:

passwd root

6.25.4. Contents of Shadow

Installed programs: chage, chfn, chgpasswd, chpasswd, chsh, expiry, faillog, gpasswd, groupadd, groupdel, groupmems, groupmod, grpck, grpconv, grpunconv, lastlog, login, logoutd, newgrp, newusers, nologin, passwd, pwck, pwconv, pwunconv, sg (link to newgrp), su, useradd, userdel, usermod, vigr (link to vipw), and vipw
Installed directory: /etc/default

Short Descriptions

chage

Used to change the maximum number of days between obligatory password changes

chfn

Used to change a user's full name and other information

chgpasswd

Used to update group passwords in batch mode

chpasswd

Used to update user passwords in batch mode

chsh

Used to change a user's default login shell

expiry

Checks and enforces the current password expiration policy

faillog

Is used to examine the log of login failures, to set a maximum number of failures before an account is blocked, or to reset the failure count

gpasswd

Is used to add and delete members and administrators to groups

groupadd

Creates a group with the given name

groupdel

Deletes the group with the given name

groupmems

Allows a user to administer his/her own group membership list without the requirement of super user privileges.

groupmod

Is used to modify the given group's name or GID

grpck

Verifies the integrity of the group files /etc/group and /etc/gshadow

grpconv

Creates or updates the shadow group file from the normal group file

grpunconv

Updates /etc/group from /etc/gshadow and then deletes the latter

lastlog

Reports the most recent login of all users or of a given user

login

Is used by the system to let users sign on

logoutd

Is a daemon used to enforce restrictions on log-on time and ports

newgrp

Is used to change the current GID during a login session

newusers

Is used to create or update an entire series of user accounts

nologin

Displays a message that an account is not available; it is designed to be used as the default shell for accounts that have been disabled

passwd

Is used to change the password for a user or group account

pwck

Verifies the integrity of the password files /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

pwconv

Creates or updates the shadow password file from the normal password file

pwunconv

Updates /etc/passwd from /etc/shadow and then deletes the latter

sg

Executes a given command while the user's GID is set to that of the given group

su

Runs a shell with substitute user and group IDs

useradd

Creates a new user with the given name, or updates the default new-user information

userdel

Deletes the given user account

usermod

Is used to modify the given user's login name, User Identification (UID), shell, initial group, home directory, etc.

vigr

Edits the /etc/group or /etc/gshadow files

vipw

Edits the /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow files

6.26. Psmisc-22.21

The Psmisc package contains programs for displaying information about running processes.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 4.2 MB

6.26.1. Installation of Psmisc

Prepare Psmisc for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

Finally, move the killall and fuser programs to the location specified by the FHS:

mv -v /usr/bin/fuser   /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/killall /bin

6.26.2. Contents of Psmisc

Installed programs: fuser, killall, peekfd, prtstat, pstree, and pstree.x11 (link to pstree)

Short Descriptions

fuser

Reports the Process IDs (PIDs) of processes that use the given files or file systems

killall

Kills processes by name; it sends a signal to all processes running any of the given commands

peekfd

Peek at file descriptors of a running process, given its PID

prtstat

Prints information about a process

pstree

Displays running processes as a tree

pstree.x11

Same as pstree, except that it waits for confirmation before exiting

6.27. Procps-ng-3.3.11

The Procps-ng package contains programs for monitoring processes.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 15 MB

6.27.1. Installation of Procps-ng

Now prepare procps-ng for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr                            \
            --exec-prefix=                           \
            --libdir=/usr/lib                        \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/procps-ng-3.3.11 \
            --disable-static                         \
            --disable-kill

The meaning of the configure options:

--disable-kill

This switch disables building the kill command that will be installed by the Util-linux package.

Compile the package:

make

The test suite needs some custom modifications for LFS. Remove the test that fails when scripting does not use a tty device. To run the test suite, run the following commands:

sed -i -r 's|(pmap_initname)\\\$|\1|' testsuite/pmap.test/pmap.exp
make check

Install the package:

make install

Finally, move essential libraries to a location that can be found if /usr is not mounted.

mv -v /usr/lib/libprocps.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libprocps.so) /usr/lib/libprocps.so

6.27.2. Contents of Procps-ng

Installed programs: free, pgrep, pidof, pkill, pmap, ps, pwdx, slabtop, sysctl, tload, top, uptime, vmstat, w, and watch
Installed library: libprocps.so
Installed directories: /usr/include/proc and /usr/share/doc/procps-ng-3.3.11

Short Descriptions

free

Reports the amount of free and used memory (both physical and swap memory) in the system

pgrep

Looks up processes based on their name and other attributes

pidof

Reports the PIDs of the given programs

pkill

Signals processes based on their name and other attributes

pmap

Reports the memory map of the given process

ps

Lists the current running processes

pwdx

Reports the current working directory of a process

slabtop

Displays detailed kernel slap cache information in real time

sysctl

Modifies kernel parameters at run time

tload

Prints a graph of the current system load average

top

Displays a list of the most CPU intensive processes; it provides an ongoing look at processor activity in real time

uptime

Reports how long the system has been running, how many users are logged on, and the system load averages

vmstat

Reports virtual memory statistics, giving information about processes, memory, paging, block Input/Output (IO), traps, and CPU activity

w

Shows which users are currently logged on, where, and since when

watch

Runs a given command repeatedly, displaying the first screen-full of its output; this allows a user to watch the output change over time

libprocps

Contains the functions used by most programs in this package

6.28. E2fsprogs-1.42.13

The E2fsprogs package contains the utilities for handling the ext2 file system. It also supports the ext3 and ext4 journaling file systems.

Approximate build time: 1.8 SBU
Required disk space: 47.3 MB

6.28.1. Installation of E2fsprogs

The E2fsprogs documentation recommends that the package be built in a subdirectory of the source tree:

mkdir -v build
cd build

Prepare E2fsprogs for compilation:

LIBS=-L/tools/lib                    \
CFLAGS=-I/tools/include              \
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/tools/lib/pkgconfig \
../configure --prefix=/usr           \
             --bindir=/bin           \
             --with-root-prefix=""   \
             --enable-elf-shlibs     \
             --disable-libblkid      \
             --disable-libuuid       \
             --disable-uuidd         \
             --disable-fsck

The meaning of the environment variable and configure options:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH, LIBS, CFLAGS

These variables enable e2fsprogs to be built using the Section 5.33, “Util-linux-2.27” package built earlier.

--with-root-prefix="" and --bindir=/bin

Certain programs (such as the e2fsck program) are considered essential programs. When, for example, /usr is not mounted, these programs still need to be available. They belong in directories like /lib and /sbin. If this option is not passed to E2fsprogs' configure, the programs are installed into the /usr directory.

--enable-elf-shlibs

This creates the shared libraries which some programs in this package use.

--disable-*

This prevents E2fsprogs from building and installing the libuuid and libblkid libraries, the uuidd daemon, and the fsck wrapper, as Util-Linux installs more recent versions.

Compile the package:

make

To set up and run the test suite we need to first link some libraries from /tools/lib to a location where the test programs look. To run the tests, issue:

ln -sfv /tools/lib/lib{blk,uu}id.so.1 lib
make LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/tools/lib check

One of the E2fsprogs tests will attempt to allocate 256 MB of memory. If you do not have significantly more RAM than this, be sure to enable sufficient swap space for the test. See Section 2.3, “Creating a File System on the Partition” and Section 2.5, “Mounting the New Partition” for details on creating and enabling swap space.

Install the binaries, documentation, and shared libraries:

make install

Install the static libraries and headers:

make install-libs

Make the installed static libraries writable so debugging symbols can be removed later:

chmod -v u+w /usr/lib/{libcom_err,libe2p,libext2fs,libss}.a

This package installs a gzipped .info file but doesn't update the system-wide dir file. Unzip this file and then update the system dir file using the following commands.

gunzip -v /usr/share/info/libext2fs.info.gz
install-info --dir-file=/usr/share/info/dir /usr/share/info/libext2fs.info

If desired, create and install some additional documentation by issuing the following commands:

makeinfo -o      doc/com_err.info ../lib/et/com_err.texinfo
install -v -m644 doc/com_err.info /usr/share/info
install-info --dir-file=/usr/share/info/dir /usr/share/info/com_err.info

6.28.2. Contents of E2fsprogs

Installed programs: badblocks, chattr, compile_et, debugfs, dumpe2fs,e2freefrag, e2fsck, e2image, e2label, e2undo, e4defrag, filefrag, fsck.ext2, fsck.ext3, fsck.ext4, fsck.ext4dev, logsave, lsattr, mk_cmds, mke2fs, mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, mkfs.ext4, mkfs.ext4dev, resize2fs, and tune2fs
Installed libraries: libcom_err.{a,so}, libe2p.{a,so}, libext2fs.{a,so}, libquota.a, and libss.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/e2p, /usr/include/et, /usr/include/ext2fs, /usr/include/quota, /usr/include/ss, /usr/share/et, and /usr/share/ss

Short Descriptions

badblocks

Searches a device (usually a disk partition) for bad blocks

chattr

Changes the attributes of files on an ext2 file system; it also changes ext3 file systems, the journaling version of ext2 file systems

compile_et

An error table compiler; it converts a table of error-code names and messages into a C source file suitable for use with the com_err library

debugfs

A file system debugger; it can be used to examine and change the state of an ext2 file system

dumpe2fs

Prints the super block and blocks group information for the file system present on a given device

e2freefrag

Reports free space fragmentation information

e2fsck

Is used to check, and optionally repair ext2 file systems and ext3 file systems

e2image

Is used to save critical ext2 file system data to a file

e2label

Displays or changes the file system label on the ext2 file system present on a given device

e2undo

Replays the undo log undo_log for an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem found on a device [This can be used to undo a failed operation by an e2fsprogs program.]

e4defrag

Online defragmenter for ext4 filesystems

filefrag

Reports on how badly fragmented a particular file might be

fsck.ext2

By default checks ext2 file systems and is a hard link to e2fsck

fsck.ext3

By default checks ext3 file systems and is a hard link to e2fsck

fsck.ext4

By default checks ext4 file systems and is a hard link to e2fsck

fsck.ext4dev

By default checks ext4 development file systems and is a hard link to e2fsck

logsave

Saves the output of a command in a log file

lsattr

Lists the attributes of files on a second extended file system

mk_cmds

Converts a table of command names and help messages into a C source file suitable for use with the libss subsystem library

mke2fs

Creates an ext2 or ext3 file system on the given device

mkfs.ext2

By default creates ext2 file systems and is a hard link to mke2fs

mkfs.ext3

By default creates ext3 file systems and is a hard link to mke2fs

mkfs.ext4

By default creates ext4 file systems and is a hard link to mke2fs

mkfs.ext4dev

By default creates ext4 development file systems and is a hard link to mke2fs

mklost+found

Used to create a lost+found directory on an ext2 file system; it pre-allocates disk blocks to this directory to lighten the task of e2fsck

resize2fs

Can be used to enlarge or shrink an ext2 file system

tune2fs

Adjusts tunable file system parameters on an ext2 file system

libcom_err

The common error display routine

libe2p

Used by dumpe2fs, chattr, and lsattr

libext2fs

Contains routines to enable user-level programs to manipulate an ext2 file system

libquota

Provides an interface for creating and updating quota files and ext4 superblock fields

libss

Used by debugfs

6.29. Coreutils-8.24

The Coreutils package contains utilities for showing and setting the basic system characteristics.

Approximate build time: 3.0 SBU
Required disk space: 166 MB

6.29.1. Installation of Coreutils

POSIX requires that programs from Coreutils recognize character boundaries correctly even in multibyte locales. The following patch fixes this non-compliance and other internationalization-related bugs. Afterwards disable a test that fails with the current version of perl.

patch -Np1 -i ../coreutils-8.24-i18n-1.patch 
sed -i '/tests\/misc\/sort.pl/ d' Makefile.in

Note

In the past, many bugs were found in this patch. When reporting new bugs to Coreutils maintainers, please check first if they are reproducible without this patch.

Now prepare Coreutils for compilation:

FORCE_UNSAFE_CONFIGURE=1 ./configure \
            --prefix=/usr            \
            --enable-no-install-program=kill,uptime

The meaning of the configure options:

FORCE_UNSAFE_CONFIGURE=1

This environment variable allows the package to be built as the root user.

--enable-no-install-program=kill,uptime

The purpose of this switch is to prevent Coreutils from installing binaries that will be installed by other packages later.

Compile the package:

make

Skip down to Install the package if not running the test suite.

Now the test suite is ready to be run. First, run the tests that are meant to be run as user root:

make NON_ROOT_USERNAME=nobody check-root

We're going to run the remainder of the tests as the nobody user. Certain tests, however, require that the user be a member of more than one group. So that these tests are not skipped we'll add a temporary group and make the user nobody a part of it:

echo "dummy:x:1000:nobody" >> /etc/group

Fix some of the permissions so that the non-root user can compile and run the tests:

chown -Rv nobody . 

Now run the tests. Make sure the PATH in the su environment includes /tools/bin.

su nobody -s /bin/bash \
          -c "PATH=$PATH make RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes check"

The stty-pairs test is known to fail on a virtual console, but passes if run in a X terminal.

Remove the temporary group:

sed -i '/dummy/d' /etc/group

Install the package:

make install

Move programs to the locations specified by the FHS:

mv -v /usr/bin/{cat,chgrp,chmod,chown,cp,date,dd,df,echo} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/{false,ln,ls,mkdir,mknod,mv,pwd,rm} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/{rmdir,stty,sync,true,uname} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/chroot /usr/sbin
mv -v /usr/share/man/man1/chroot.1 /usr/share/man/man8/chroot.8
sed -i s/\"1\"/\"8\"/1 /usr/share/man/man8/chroot.8

Some packages in BLFS and beyond expect the following programs in /bin, so make sure they are placed there:

mv -v /usr/bin/{head,sleep,nice,test,[} /bin

6.29.2. Contents of Coreutils

Installed programs: [, base64, basename, cat, chcon, chgrp, chmod, chown, chroot, cksum, comm, cp, csplit, cut, date, dd, df, dir, dircolors, dirname, du, echo, env, expand, expr, factor, false, fmt, fold, groups, head, hostid, id, install, join, link, ln, logname, ls, md5sum, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mktemp, mv, nice, nl, nohup, nproc, numfmt, od, paste, pathchk, pinky, pr, printenv, printf, ptx, pwd, readlink, realpath, rm, rmdir, runcon, seq, sha1sum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum, sha512sum, shred, shuf, sleep, sort, split, stat, stdbuf, stty, sum, sync, tac, tail, tee, test, timeout, touch, tr, true, truncate, tsort, tty, uname, unexpand, uniq, unlink, users, vdir, wc, who, whoami, and yes
Installed library: libstdbuf.so
Installed directory: /usr/libexec/coreutils

Short Descriptions

base64

Encodes and decodes data according to the base64 (RFC 3548) specification

basename

Strips any path and a given suffix from a file name

cat

Concatenates files to standard output

chcon

Changes security context for files and directories

chgrp

Changes the group ownership of files and directories

chmod

Changes the permissions of each file to the given mode; the mode can be either a symbolic representation of the changes to make or an octal number representing the new permissions

chown

Changes the user and/or group ownership of files and directories

chroot

Runs a command with the specified directory as the / directory

cksum

Prints the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) checksum and the byte counts of each specified file

comm

Compares two sorted files, outputting in three columns the lines that are unique and the lines that are common

cp

Copies files

csplit

Splits a given file into several new files, separating them according to given patterns or line numbers and outputting the byte count of each new file

cut

Prints sections of lines, selecting the parts according to given fields or positions

date

Displays the current time in the given format, or sets the system date

dd

Copies a file using the given block size and count, while optionally performing conversions on it

df

Reports the amount of disk space available (and used) on all mounted file systems, or only on the file systems holding the selected files

dir

Lists the contents of each given directory (the same as the ls command)

dircolors

Outputs commands to set the LS_COLOR environment variable to change the color scheme used by ls

dirname

Strips the non-directory suffix from a file name

du

Reports the amount of disk space used by the current directory, by each of the given directories (including all subdirectories) or by each of the given files

echo

Displays the given strings

env

Runs a command in a modified environment

expand

Converts tabs to spaces

expr

Evaluates expressions

factor

Prints the prime factors of all specified integer numbers

false

Does nothing, unsuccessfully; it always exits with a status code indicating failure

fmt

Reformats the paragraphs in the given files

fold

Wraps the lines in the given files

groups

Reports a user's group memberships

head

Prints the first ten lines (or the given number of lines) of each given file

hostid

Reports the numeric identifier (in hexadecimal) of the host

id

Reports the effective user ID, group ID, and group memberships of the current user or specified user

install

Copies files while setting their permission modes and, if possible, their owner and group

join

Joins the lines that have identical join fields from two separate files

link

Creates a hard link with the given name to a file

ln

Makes hard links or soft (symbolic) links between files

logname

Reports the current user's login name

ls

Lists the contents of each given directory

md5sum

Reports or checks Message Digest 5 (MD5) checksums

mkdir

Creates directories with the given names

mkfifo

Creates First-In, First-Outs (FIFOs), a "named pipe" in UNIX parlance, with the given names

mknod

Creates device nodes with the given names; a device node is a character special file, a block special file, or a FIFO

mktemp

Creates temporary files in a secure manner; it is used in scripts

mv

Moves or renames files or directories

nice

Runs a program with modified scheduling priority

nl

Numbers the lines from the given files

nohup

Runs a command immune to hangups, with its output redirected to a log file

nproc

Prints the number of processing units available to a process

numfmt

Converts numbers to or from human-readable strings

od

Dumps files in octal and other formats

paste

Merges the given files, joining sequentially corresponding lines side by side, separated by tab characters

pathchk

Checks if file names are valid or portable

pinky

Is a lightweight finger client; it reports some information about the given users

pr

Paginates and columnates files for printing

printenv

Prints the environment

printf

Prints the given arguments according to the given format, much like the C printf function

ptx

Produces a permuted index from the contents of the given files, with each keyword in its context

pwd

Reports the name of the current working directory

readlink

Reports the value of the given symbolic link

realpath

Prints the resolved path

rm

Removes files or directories

rmdir

Removes directories if they are empty

runcon

Runs a command with specified security context

seq

Prints a sequence of numbers within a given range and with a given increment

sha1sum

Prints or checks 160-bit Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1) checksums

sha224sum

Prints or checks 224-bit Secure Hash Algorithm checksums

sha256sum

Prints or checks 256-bit Secure Hash Algorithm checksums

sha384sum

Prints or checks 384-bit Secure Hash Algorithm checksums

sha512sum

Prints or checks 512-bit Secure Hash Algorithm checksums

shred

Overwrites the given files repeatedly with complex patterns, making it difficult to recover the data

shuf

Shuffles lines of text

sleep

Pauses for the given amount of time

sort

Sorts the lines from the given files

split

Splits the given file into pieces, by size or by number of lines

stat

Displays file or filesystem status

stdbuf

Runs commands with altered buffering operations for its standard streams

stty

Sets or reports terminal line settings

sum

Prints checksum and block counts for each given file

sync

Flushes file system buffers; it forces changed blocks to disk and updates the super block

tac

Concatenates the given files in reverse

tail

Prints the last ten lines (or the given number of lines) of each given file

tee

Reads from standard input while writing both to standard output and to the given files

test

Compares values and checks file types

timeout

Runs a command with a time limit

touch

Changes file timestamps, setting the access and modification times of the given files to the current time; files that do not exist are created with zero length

tr

Translates, squeezes, and deletes the given characters from standard input

true

Does nothing, successfully; it always exits with a status code indicating success

truncate

Shrinks or expands a file to the specified size

tsort

Performs a topological sort; it writes a completely ordered list according to the partial ordering in a given file

tty

Reports the file name of the terminal connected to standard input

uname

Reports system information

unexpand

Converts spaces to tabs

uniq

Discards all but one of successive identical lines

unlink

Removes the given file

users

Reports the names of the users currently logged on

vdir

Is the same as ls -l

wc

Reports the number of lines, words, and bytes for each given file, as well as a total line when more than one file is given

who

Reports who is logged on

whoami

Reports the user name associated with the current effective user ID

yes

Repeatedly outputs y or a given string until killed

libstdbuf

Library used by stdbuf

6.30. Iana-Etc-2.30

The Iana-Etc package provides data for network services and protocols.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 2.2 MB

6.30.1. Installation of Iana-Etc

The following command converts the raw data provided by IANA into the correct formats for the /etc/protocols and /etc/services data files:

make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make install

6.30.2. Contents of Iana-Etc

Installed files: /etc/protocols and /etc/services

Short Descriptions

/etc/protocols

Describes the various DARPA Internet protocols that are available from the TCP/IP subsystem

/etc/services

Provides a mapping between friendly textual names for internet services, and their underlying assigned port numbers and protocol types

6.31. M4-1.4.17

The M4 package contains a macro processor.

Approximate build time: 0.5 SBU
Required disk space: 31 MB

6.31.1. Installation of M4

Prepare M4 for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

The test-update-copyright.sh failure can safely be ignored.

Install the package:

make install

6.31.2. Contents of M4

Installed program: m4

Short Descriptions

m4

copies the given files while expanding the macros that they contain [These macros are either built-in or user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides performing macro expansion, m4 has built-in functions for including named files, running Unix commands, performing integer arithmetic, manipulating text, recursion, etc. The m4 program can be used either as a front-end to a compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.]

6.32. Flex-2.5.39

The Flex package contains a utility for generating programs that recognize patterns in text.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 38 MB

6.32.1. Installation of Flex

First, skip running three regression tests that require Bison:

sed -i -e '/test-bison/d' tests/Makefile.in

Prepare Flex for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --docdir=/usr/share/doc/flex-2.5.39

Compile the package:

make

To test the results (about 0.5 SBU), issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

A few programs do not know about flex yet and try to run its predecessor, lex. To support those programs, create a symbolic link named lex that runs flex in lex emulation mode:

ln -sv flex /usr/bin/lex

6.32.2. Contents of Flex

Installed programs: flex, flex++ (link to flex), and lex (link to flex)
Installed libraries: libfl.{a,so} and libfl_pic.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/flex-2.5.39

Short Descriptions

flex

A tool for generating programs that recognize patterns in text; it allows for the versatility to specify the rules for pattern-finding, eradicating the need to develop a specialized program

flex++

An extension of flex, is used for generating C++ code and classes. It is a symbolic link to flex

lex

A script that runs flex in lex emulation mode

libfl

The flex library

6.33. Bison-3.0.4

The Bison package contains a parser generator.

Approximate build time: 2.7 SBU
Required disk space: 36.6 MB

6.33.1. Installation of Bison

Prepare Bison for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --docdir=/usr/share/doc/bison-3.0.4

Compile the package:

make

To test the results (about 0.5 SBU), issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

6.33.2. Contents of Bison

Installed programs: bison and yacc
Installed library: liby.a
Installed directory: /usr/share/bison

Short Descriptions

bison

Generates, from a series of rules, a program for analyzing the structure of text files; Bison is a replacement for Yacc (Yet Another Compiler Compiler)

yacc

A wrapper for bison, meant for programs that still call yacc instead of bison; it calls bison with the -y option

liby

The Yacc library containing implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions; this library is normally not very useful, but POSIX requires it

6.34. Grep-2.21

The Grep package contains programs for searching through files.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 29 MB

6.34.1. Installation of Grep

First fix a potential security issue identified upstream:

sed -i -e '/tp++/a  if (ep <= tp) break;' src/kwset.c

Prepare Grep for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

The test-update-copyright.sh failure can be safely ignored.

Install the package:

make install

6.34.2. Contents of Grep

Installed programs: egrep, fgrep, and grep

Short Descriptions

egrep

Prints lines matching an extended regular expression

fgrep

Prints lines matching a list of fixed strings

grep

Prints lines matching a basic regular expression

6.35. Readline-6.3

The Readline package is a set of libraries that offers command-line editing and history capabilities.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 13.7 MB

6.35.1. Installation of Readline

First install some patches to fix various bugs that have been addressed upstream:

patch -Np1 -i ../readline-6.3-upstream_fixes-3.patch

Reinstalling Readline will cause the old libraries to be moved to <libraryname>.old. While this is normally not a problem, in some cases it can trigger a linking bug in ldconfig. This can be avoided by issuing the following two seds:

sed -i '/MV.*old/d' Makefile.in
sed -i '/{OLDSUFF}/c:' support/shlib-install

Prepare Readline for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --disable-static \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/readline-6.3

Compile the package:

make SHLIB_LIBS=-lncurses

The meaning of the make option:

SHLIB_LIBS=-lncurses

This option forces Readline to link against the libncurses (really, libncursesw) library.

This package does not come with a test suite.

Install the package:

make SHLIB_LIBS=-lncurses install

Now move the dynamic libraries to a more appropriate location and fix up some symbolic links:

mv -v /usr/lib/lib{readline,history}.so.* /lib
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libreadline.so) /usr/lib/libreadline.so
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libhistory.so ) /usr/lib/libhistory.so

If desired, install the documentation:

install -v -m644 doc/*.{ps,pdf,html,dvi} /usr/share/doc/readline-6.3

6.35.2. Contents of Readline

Installed libraries: libhistory.{a,so} and libreadline.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/readline, /usr/share/readline, and /usr/share/doc/readline-6.3

Short Descriptions

libhistory

Provides a consistent user interface for recalling lines of history

libreadline

Aids in the consistency of user interface across discrete programs that need to provide a command line interface

6.36. Bash-4.3.30

The Bash package contains the Bourne-Again SHell.

Approximate build time: 1.6 SBU
Required disk space: 50 MB

6.36.1. Installation of Bash

First, apply the following patch to fix various bugs that have been addressed upstream:

patch -Np1 -i ../bash-4.3.30-upstream_fixes-2.patch

Prepare Bash for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr                       \
            --bindir=/bin                       \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/bash-4.3.30 \
            --without-bash-malloc               \
            --with-installed-readline

The meaning of the new configure option:

--with-installed-readline

This option tells Bash to use the readline library that is already installed on the system rather than using its own readline version.

Compile the package:

make

Skip down to Install the package if not running the test suite.

To prepare the tests, ensure that the nobody user can write to the sources tree:

chown -Rv nobody .

Now, run the tests as the nobody user:

su nobody -s /bin/bash -c "PATH=$PATH make tests"

Install the package:

make install

Run the newly compiled bash program (replacing the one that is currently being executed):

exec /bin/bash --login +h

Note

The parameters used make the bash process an interactive login shell and continue to disable hashing so that new programs are found as they become available.

6.36.2. Contents of Bash

Installed programs: bash, bashbug, and sh (link to bash)
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/bash-4.3.30

Short Descriptions

bash

A widely-used command interpreter; it performs many types of expansions and substitutions on a given command line before executing it, thus making this interpreter a powerful tool

bashbug

A shell script to help the user compose and mail standard formatted bug reports concerning bash

sh

A symlink to the bash program; when invoked as sh, bash tries to mimic the startup behavior of historical versions of sh as closely as possible, while conforming to the POSIX standard as well

6.37. Bc-1.06.95

The Bc package contains an arbitrary precision numeric processing language.

Approximate build time: 0.2 SBU
Required disk space: 3.7 MB

6.37.1. Installation of Bc

First, fix some minor memory leaks in the code:

patch -Np1 -i ../bc-1.06.95-memory_leak-1.patch

Prepare Bc for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr           \
            --with-readline         \
            --mandir=/usr/share/man \
            --infodir=/usr/share/info

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-readline

This option tells Bc to use the readline library that is already installed on the system rather than using its own readline version.

Compile the package:

make

To test bc, run the commands below. There is quite a bit of output, so you may want to redirect it to a file. There are a very small percentage of tests (10 of 12,144) that will indicate a roundoff error at the last digit.

echo "quit" | ./bc/bc -l Test/checklib.b

Install the package:

make install

6.37.2. Contents of Bc

Installed programs: bc and dc

Short Descriptions

bc

is a command line calculator

dc

is a reverse-polish command line calculator

6.38. Libtool-2.4.6

The Libtool package contains the GNU generic library support script. It wraps the complexity of using shared libraries in a consistent, portable interface.

Approximate build time: 2.3 SBU
Required disk space: 44 MB

6.38.1. Installation of Libtool

Prepare Libtool for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results (about 11.0 SBU), issue:

make check

Five tests are known to fail in the LFS build envronment due to a circular dependency, but all tests pass if rechecked after automake is installed.

Install the package:

make install

6.38.2. Contents of Libtool

Installed programs: libtool and libtoolize
Installed libraries: libltdl.{a,so}
Installed directories: /usr/include/libltdl and /usr/share/libtool

Short Descriptions

libtool

Provides generalized library-building support services

libtoolize

Provides a standard way to add libtool support to a package

libltdl

Hides the various difficulties of dlopening libraries

6.39. GDBM-1.11

The GDBM package contains the GNU Database Manager. It is a library of database functions that use extensible hashing and work similar to the standard UNIX dbm. The library provides primitives for storing key/data pairs, searching and retrieving the data by its key and deleting a key along with its data.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 9.0 MB

6.39.1. Installation of GDBM

Prepare GDBM for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr \
            --disable-static \
            --enable-libgdbm-compat

The meaning of the configure option:

--enable-libgdbm-compat

This switch enables the libgdbm compatibility library to be built, as some packages outside of LFS may require the older DBM routines it provides.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

6.39.2. Contents of GDBM

Installed programs: gdbm_dump, gdbm_load, and gdbmtool
Installed libraries: libgdbm.{a,so} and libgdbm_compat.{a,so}

Short Descriptions

gdbm_dump

Dumps a GDBM database to a file

gdbm_load

Recreates a GDBM database from a dump file

gdbmtool

Tests and modifies a GDBM database

libgdbm

Contains functions to manipulate a hashed database

libgdbm_compat

Compatibility library containing older DBM functions

6.40. Expat-2.1.0

The Expat package contains a stream oriented C library for parsing XML.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 6.7 MB

6.40.1. Installation of Expat

Prepare Expat for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

If desired, install the documentation:

install -v -dm755 /usr/share/doc/expat-2.1.0
install -v -m644 doc/*.{html,png,css} /usr/share/doc/expat-2.1.0

6.40.2. Contents of Expat

Installed program: xmlwf
Installed libraries: libexpat.{a,so}
Installed directory: /usr/share/doc/expat-2.1.0

Short Descriptions

xmlwf

is a non-validating utility to check whether or not XML documents are well formed

libexpat

contains API functions for parsing XML

6.41. Inetutils-1.9.4

The Inetutils package contains programs for basic networking.

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 28 MB

6.41.1. Installation of Inetutils

Prepare Inetutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr        \
            --localstatedir=/var \
            --disable-logger     \
            --disable-whois      \
            --disable-rcp        \
            --disable-rexec      \
            --disable-rlogin     \
            --disable-rsh        \
            --disable-servers

The meaning of the configure options:

--disable-r*

These parameters disable building obsolete programs that should not be used due to security issues. The functions provided by these programs can be provided by the openssh package in the BLFS book.

--disable-logger

This option prevents Inetutils from installing the logger program, which is used by scripts to pass messages to the System Log Daemon. Do not install it because Util-linux installs a more recent version.

--disable-whois

This option disables the building of the Inetutils whois client, which is out of date. Instructions for a better whois client are in the BLFS book.

--disable-servers

This disables the installation of the various network servers included as part of the Inetutils package. These servers are deemed not appropriate in a basic LFS system. Some are insecure by nature and are only considered safe on trusted networks. Note that better replacements are available for many of these servers.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

One test, libls.sh, is known to fail due to hard coding of some support program paths. All tests pass if the tests are rerun at the end of Chapter 6.

Install the package:

make install

Move some programs so they are available if /usr is not accessible:

mv -v /usr/bin/{hostname,ping,ping6,traceroute} /bin
mv -v /usr/bin/ifconfig /sbin

6.41.2. Contents of Inetutils

Installed programs: ftp, ifconfig, hostname, ping, ping6, rcp, rexec, rlogin, rsh, talk, telnet, tftp, and traceroute

Short Descriptions

ftp

Is the file transfer protocol program

ifconfig

Manages network interfaces

hostname

Reports or sets the name of the host

ping

Sends echo-request packets and reports how long the replies take

ping6

A version of ping for IPv6 networks

talk

Is used to chat with another user

telnet

An interface to the TELNET protocol

tftp

A trivial file transfer program

traceroute

Traces the route your packets take from the host you are working on to another host on a network, showing all the intermediate hops (gateways) along the way

6.42. Perl-5.22.0

The Perl package contains the Practical Extraction and Report Language.

Approximate build time: 6.9 SBU
Required disk space: 241 MB

6.42.1. Installation of Perl

First create a basic /etc/hosts file to be referenced in one of Perl's configuration files as well as the optional test suite:

echo "127.0.0.1 localhost $(hostname)" > /etc/hosts

This version of Perl now builds the Compress::Raw::Zlib and Compress::Raw::BZip2 modules. By default Perl will use an internal copy of the sources for the build. Issue the following command so that Perl will use the libraries installed on the system:

export BUILD_ZLIB=False
export BUILD_BZIP2=0

To have full control over the way Perl is set up, you can remove the -des options from the following command and hand-pick the way this package is built. Alternatively, use the command exactly as below to use the defaults that Perl auto-detects:

sh Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr                 \
                  -Dvendorprefix=/usr           \
                  -Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 \
                  -Dman3dir=/usr/share/man/man3 \
                  -Dpager="/usr/bin/less -isR"  \
                  -Duseshrplib

The meaning of the configure options:

-Dvendorprefix=/usr

This ensures perl knows how to tell packages where they should install their perl modules.

-Dpager="/usr/bin/less -isR"

This ensures that less is used instead of more.

-Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 -Dman3dir=/usr/share/man/man3

Since Groff is not installed yet, Configure thinks that we do not want man pages for Perl. Issuing these parameters overrides this decision.

-Duseshrplib

Build a shared libperl needed by some perl modules.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results (approximately 2.5 SBU), issue:

make -k test

Install the package and clean up:

make install
unset BUILD_ZLIB BUILD_BZIP2

6.42.2. Contents of Perl

Installed programs: a2p, c2ph, corelist, cpan, cpan2dist, cpanp, cpanp-run-perl, enc2xs, find2perl, h2ph, h2xs, instmodsh, json_pp, libnetcfg, perl, perl5.22.0 (link to perl), perlbug, perldoc, perlivp, perlthanks (link to perlbug), piconv, pl2pm, pod2html, pod2latex, pod2man, pod2text, pod2usage, podchecker, podselect, prove, psed (link to s2p), pstruct (link to c2ph), ptar, ptardiff, ptargrep, s2p, shasum, splain, xsubpp, and zipdetails
Installed libraries: Several hundred which cannot all be listed here
Installed directory: /usr/lib/perl5

Short Descriptions

a2p

Translates awk to Perl

c2ph

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S

corelist

A commandline frontend to Module::CoreList

cpan

Interact with the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) from the command line

cpan2dist

The CPANPLUS distribution creator

cpanp

The CPANPLUS launcher

cpanp-run-perl

Perl script that is used to enable flushing of the output buffer after each write in spawned processes

enc2xs

Builds a Perl extension for the Encode module from either Unicode Character Mappings or Tcl Encoding Files

find2perl

Translates find commands to Perl

h2ph

Converts .h C header files to .ph Perl header files

h2xs

Converts .h C header files to Perl extensions

instmodsh

Shell script for examining installed Perl modules, and can even create a tarball from an installed module

json_pp

Converts data between certain input and output formats

libnetcfg

Can be used to configure the libnet Perl module

perl

Combines some of the best features of C, sed, awk and sh into a single swiss-army language

perl5.22.0

A hard link to perl

perlbug

Used to generate bug reports about Perl, or the modules that come with it, and mail them

perldoc

Displays a piece of documentation in pod format that is embedded in the Perl installation tree or in a Perl script

perlivp

The Perl Installation Verification Procedure; it can be used to verify that Perl and its libraries have been installed correctly

perlthanks

Used to generate thank you messages to mail to the Perl developers

piconv

A Perl version of the character encoding converter iconv

pl2pm

A rough tool for converting Perl4 .pl files to Perl5 .pm modules

pod2html

Converts files from pod format to HTML format

pod2latex

Converts files from pod format to LaTeX format

pod2man

Converts pod data to formatted *roff input

pod2text

Converts pod data to formatted ASCII text

pod2usage

Prints usage messages from embedded pod docs in files

podchecker

Checks the syntax of pod format documentation files

podselect

Displays selected sections of pod documentation

prove

Command line tool for running tests against the Test::Harness module

psed

A Perl version of the stream editor sed

pstruct

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S stabs

ptar

A tar-like program written in Perl

ptardiff

A Perl program that compares an extracted archive with an unextracted one

ptargrep

A Perl program that applies pattern matching to the contents of files in a tar archive

s2p

Translates sed scripts to Perl

shasum

Prints or checks SHA checksums

splain

Is used to force verbose warning diagnostics in Perl

xsubpp

Converts Perl XS code into C code

zipdetails

Displays details about the internal structure of a Zip file

6.43. XML::Parser-2.44

The XML::Parser module is a Perl interface to James Clark's XML parser, Expat.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 2.0 MB

6.43.1. Installation of XML::Parser

Prepare XML::Parser for compilation:

perl Makefile.PL

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make test

Install the package:

make install

6.43.2. Contents of XML::Parser

Installed module: Expat.so

Short Descriptions

Expat

provides the Perl Expat interface

6.44. Autoconf-2.69

The Autoconf package contains programs for producing shell scripts that can automatically configure source code.

Approximate build time: 4.0 SBU
Required disk space: 18 MB

6.44.1. Installation of Autoconf

Prepare Autoconf for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

This takes a long time, about 4.7 SBUs. In addition, 6 tests are skipped that use Automake. For full test coverage, Autoconf can be re-tested after Automake has been installed. In addition, two tests fail due to changes in libtool-2.4.3 and later.

Install the package:

make install

6.44.2. Contents of Autoconf

Installed programs: autoconf, autoheader, autom4te, autoreconf, autoscan, autoupdate, and ifnames
Installed directory: /usr/share/autoconf

Short Descriptions

autoconf

Produces shell scripts that automatically configure software source code packages to adapt to many kinds of Unix-like systems; the configuration scripts it produces are independent—running them does not require the autoconf program

autoheader

A tool for creating template files of C #define statements for configure to use

autom4te

A wrapper for the M4 macro processor

autoreconf

Automatically runs autoconf, autoheader, aclocal, automake, gettextize, and libtoolize in the correct order to save time when changes are made to autoconf and automake template files

autoscan

Helps to create a configure.in file for a software package; it examines the source files in a directory tree, searching them for common portability issues, and creates a configure.scan file that serves as as a preliminary configure.in file for the package

autoupdate

Modifies a configure.in file that still calls autoconf macros by their old names to use the current macro names

ifnames

Helps when writing configure.in files for a software package; it prints the identifiers that the package uses in C preprocessor conditionals [If a package has already been set up to have some portability, this program can help determine what configure needs to check for. It can also fill in gaps in a configure.in file generated by autoscan.]

6.45. Automake-1.15

The Automake package contains programs for generating Makefiles for use with Autoconf.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU (about 11.4 SBU with tests)
Required disk space: 107 MB

6.45.1. Installation of Automake

First fix a warning that is caused by perl-5.22 and later:

sed -i 's:/\\\${:/\\\$\\{:' bin/automake.in

Prepare Automake for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --docdir=/usr/share/doc/automake-1.15

Compile the package:

make

There are a couple of tests that incorrectly link to the wrong version of the flex library, so we temporarily work around the problem. Also, using the -j4 make option speeds up the tests, even on systems with only one processor, due to internal delays in individual tests. To test the results, issue:

sed -i "s:./configure:LEXLIB=/usr/lib/libfl.a &:" t/lex-{clean,depend}-cxx.sh
make -j4 check

Install the package:

make install

6.45.2. Contents of Automake

Installed programs: aclocal, aclocal-1.15, automake, automake-1.15, compile, config.guess, config.sub, depcomp, install-sh, mdate-sh, missing, mkinstalldirs, py-compile, and ylwrap
Installed directories: /usr/share/aclocal-1.15, /usr/share/automake-1.15, and /usr/share/doc/automake-1.15

Short Descriptions

aclocal

Generates aclocal.m4 files based on the contents of configure.in files

aclocal-1.15

A hard link to aclocal

automake

A tool for automatically generating Makefile.in files from Makefile.am files [To create all the Makefile.in files for a package, run this program in the top-level directory. By scanning the configure.in file, it automatically finds each appropriate Makefile.am file and generates the corresponding Makefile.in file.]

automake-1.15

A hard link to automake

compile

A wrapper for compilers

config.guess

A script that attempts to guess the canonical triplet for the given build, host, or target architecture

config.sub

A configuration validation subroutine script

depcomp

A script for compiling a program so that dependency information is generated in addition to the desired output

install-sh

A script that installs a program, script, or data file

mdate-sh

A script that prints the modification time of a file or directory

missing

A script acting as a common stub for missing GNU programs during an installation

mkinstalldirs

A script that creates a directory tree

py-compile

Compiles a Python program

ylwrap

A wrapper for lex and yacc

6.46. Diffutils-3.3

The Diffutils package contains programs that show the differences between files or directories.

Approximate build time: 0.5 SBU
Required disk space: 28.5 MB

6.46.1. Installation of Diffutils

First fix a file so locale files are installed:

sed -i 's:= @mkdir_p@:= /bin/mkdir -p:' po/Makefile.in.in

Prepare Diffutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

The test-update-copyright.sh failure can be safely ignored.

Install the package:

make install

6.46.2. Contents of Diffutils

Installed programs: cmp, diff, diff3, and sdiff

Short Descriptions

cmp

Compares two files and reports whether or in which bytes they differ

diff

Compares two files or directories and reports which lines in the files differ

diff3

Compares three files line by line

sdiff

Merges two files and interactively outputs the results

6.47. Gawk-4.1.3

The Gawk package contains programs for manipulating text files.

Approximate build time: 0.3 SBU
Required disk space: 36 MB

6.47.1. Installation of Gawk

Prepare Gawk for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

If desired, install the documentation:

mkdir -v /usr/share/doc/gawk-4.1.3
cp    -v doc/{awkforai.txt,*.{eps,pdf,jpg}} /usr/share/doc/gawk-4.1.3

6.47.2. Contents of Gawk

Installed programs: awk (link to gawk), gawk, gawk-4.1.3, and igawk
Installed libraries: filefuncs.so, fnmatch.so, fork.so, inplace.so, ordchr.so, readdir.so, readfile.so, revoutput.so, revtwoway.so, rwarray.so, testext.so, and time.so
Installed directories: /usr/lib/gawk, /usr/libexec/awk, /usr/share/awk, and /usr/share/doc/gawk-4.1.3

Short Descriptions

awk

A link to gawk

gawk

A program for manipulating text files; it is the GNU implementation of awk

gawk-4.1.3

A hard link to gawk

igawk

Gives gawk the ability to include files

6.48. Findutils-4.4.2

The Findutils package contains programs to find files. These programs are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to create, maintain, and search a database (often faster than the recursive find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).

Approximate build time: 0.4 SBU
Required disk space: 29 MB

6.48.1. Installation of Findutils

Prepare Findutils for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var/lib/locate

The meaning of the configure options:

--localstatedir

This option changes the location of the locate database to be in /var/lib/locate, which is FHS-compliant.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

Some packages in BLFS and beyond expect the find program in /bin, so make sure it's placed there:

mv -v /usr/bin/find /bin
sed -i 's|find:=${BINDIR}|find:=/bin|' /usr/bin/updatedb

6.48.2. Contents of Findutils

Installed programs: bigram, code, find, frcode, locate, oldfind, updatedb, and xargs

Short Descriptions

bigram

Was formerly used to produce locate databases

code

Was formerly used to produce locate databases; it is the ancestor of frcode

find

Searches given directory trees for files matching the specified criteria

frcode

Is called by updatedb to compress the list of file names; it uses front-compression, reducing the database size by a factor of four to five

locate

Searches through a database of file names and reports the names that contain a given string or match a given pattern

oldfind

Older version of find, using a different algorithm

updatedb

Updates the locate database; it scans the entire file system (including other file systems that are currently mounted, unless told not to) and puts every file name it finds into the database

xargs

Can be used to apply a given command to a list of files

6.49. Gettext-0.19.5.1

The Gettext package contains utilities for internationalization and localization. These allow programs to be compiled with NLS (Native Language Support), enabling them to output messages in the user's native language.

Approximate build time: 2.7 SBU
Required disk space: 191 MB

6.49.1. Installation of Gettext

Prepare Gettext for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr    \
            --disable-static \
            --docdir=/usr/share/doc/gettext-0.19.5.1

Compile the package:

make

To test the results (this takes a long time, around 3 SBUs), issue:

make check

Install the package:

make install

6.49.2. Contents of Gettext

Installed programs: autopoint, config.charset, config.rpath, envsubst, gettext, gettext.sh, gettextize, hostname, msgattrib, msgcat, msgcmp, msgcomm, msgconv, msgen, msgexec, msgfilter, msgfmt, msggrep, msginit, msgmerge, msgunfmt, msguniq, ngettext, recode-sr-latin, and xgettext
Installed libraries: libasprintf.{a,so}, libgettextlib.so, libgettextpo.{a,so}, libgettextsrc.so, and preloadable_libintl.so
Installed directories: /usr/lib/gettext, /usr/share/doc/gettext-0.19.5.1, and /usr/share/gettext

Short Descriptions

autopoint

Copies standard Gettext infrastructure files into a source package

config.charset

Outputs a system-dependent table of character encoding aliases

config.rpath

Outputs a system-dependent set of variables, describing how to set the runtime search path of shared libraries in an executable

envsubst

Substitutes environment variables in shell format strings

gettext

Translates a natural language message into the user's language by looking up the translation in a message catalog

gettext.sh

Primarily serves as a shell function library for gettext

gettextize

Copies all standard Gettext files into the given top-level directory of a package to begin internationalizing it

hostname

Displays a network hostname in various forms

msgattrib

Filters the messages of a translation catalog according to their attributes and manipulates the attributes

msgcat

Concatenates and merges the given .po files

msgcmp

Compares two .po files to check that both contain the same set of msgid strings

msgcomm

Finds the messages that are common to to the given .po files

msgconv

Converts a translation catalog to a different character encoding

msgen

Creates an English translation catalog

msgexec

Applies a command to all translations of a translation catalog

msgfilter

Applies a filter to all translations of a translation catalog

msgfmt

Generates a binary message catalog from a translation catalog

msggrep

Extracts all messages of a translation catalog that match a given pattern or belong to some given source files

msginit

Creates a new .po file, initializing the meta information with values from the user's environment

msgmerge

Combines two raw translations into a single file

msgunfmt

Decompiles a binary message catalog into raw translation text

msguniq

Unifies duplicate translations in a translation catalog

ngettext

Displays native language translations of a textual message whose grammatical form depends on a number