openssh bugs - Sep 2024 - [Bug 3738] New: References to autoreconf

https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3738

            Bug ID: 3738
           Summary: References to autoreconf
           Product: Portable OpenSSH
           Version: 9.9p1
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: minor
          Priority: P5
         Component: Documentation
          Assignee: unassigned-bugs at mindrot.org
          Reporter: Keith.S.Thompson at gmail.com

In https://anongit.mindrot.org/openssh.git, the README.md and INSTALL
files refer to running autoreconf to generate the configure script if
building from a checked out git repo.

As of release 9.9 (tag V_9_9_P1), the configure script is checked into
the git repo, so it can be built without first running autoreconf.
Running autoreconf anyway is harmless (on my system it adds an empty
line to the end of the configure script), so this is unlikely to cause
any problems. 9.9 is the first and so far only release that has the
configure script in the git repo.

Presumably some local changes might invalidate the configure script and
require re-running autoreconf, but I suspect that's not likely to be an
issue -- and it already applies to building from a tarball with local
changes.

Suggested solutions:

1. Leave it alone and don't worry about it.

2. Update README.md and INSTALL with more discussion about when it's
necessary to run autoreconf.

3. Remove the configure script from the git repo, forcing users to run
autoreconf.

(Unrelated: Both README and README.md exist, but they have different
content. That feels odd.)

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3738

Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |dtucker at dtucker.net

--- Comment #1 from Darren Tucker <dtucker at dtucker.net>
---
> Presumably some local changes might invalidate the configure script and
> require re-running autoreconf,
There's already a check in configure for this
(https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/master/configure.ac#L21),
so:

$ touch configure.ac && ./configure
configure: error: ./configure.ac newer than configure, run autoreconf
> (Unrelated: Both README and README.md exist, but they have different
> content. That feels odd.)
README is the original file, README.md was added for the benefit of
github users.

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https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3738

Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |djm at mindrot.org

--- Comment #2 from Damien Miller <djm at mindrot.org> ---
the mention of autoreconf is still relevant - we only check in
configure on the release branches, not the master branch

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