Libguestfs - Apr 2023 - How to resolve OCaml-augeas dependency for Guestfs build on Ubuntu 22.04

Hi Libguestfs team,

I'm trying to build guestfs on Ubuntu 22.04, but getting below error.
#17 8.021 checking for OCaml findlib package augeas... not found
#17 8.024 configure: error: the OCaml module 'augeas' is required

By guestfs-building doc I need to get the package from
https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/augeas/. But there is not instructions on how
and where to place the package .tar file? I downloaded the .tar and untar it to
/usr/local/ but that does not help.

Can anyone please help on how to resolve this issue?

Thanks,
Chintan
OCaml bindings for Augeas<https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/augeas/>
ocaml-augeas, augeas bindings for OCaml, at Richard Jones's home page,
Emerging Technologies, Red Hat
people.redhat.com

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On 4/5/23 18:29, Chintan Patel wrote:
> Hi Libguestfs team,
> 
> I'm trying to build guestfs on Ubuntu 22.04, but getting below error.
> #17 8.021 checking for OCaml findlib package augeas... not found
> #17 8.024 configure: error: the OCaml module 'augeas' is required
> 
> By guestfs-building doc I need to get the package
> from?https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/augeas/
> <https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/augeas/>. But there is not
> instructions on how and where to place the package .tar file? I
> downloaded the .tar and untar it to /usr/local/ but that does not help.?
> 
> Can anyone please help on how to resolve this issue?
(1) Rich announced the new external dependency on "ocaml-augeas" in
<http://mid.mail-archive.com/20230121115301.GR7636 at redhat.com>.
According to that message, Debian will have to package ocaml-augeas, and
that package will eventually trickle down to ubuntu (probably not an LTS
release though).

((2) I've not tried building ocaml-augeas myself from the upstream
tarball, I just rebuilt the Fedora SRPM on RHEL9, and installed that.
This way I can develop upstream libguestfs on RHEL9. Once we rebase
libguestfs to upstream in RHEL9, we'll inherit the new dependency, and
we are likely going to have to package ocaml-augeas in RHEL9. Not sure.)

(3) Peeking into the 0.6 release tarball now, I don't think just
extracting it suffices. There's a configure script in it, so you need to
build and install it. And once you do, I *think* the libguestfs build
system should find it, via "ocamlfind".

In case you installed ocaml-augeas in a nonstandard path, then you might
have to extend your OCAMLPATH environment variable, namely with the
directory where ocaml-augeas installed its the META file. Do this before
building libguestfs; I *think* it is through OCAMLPATH how "ocamlfind"
locates OCaml modules.

Laszlo

On Wed, Apr 05, 2023 at 04:29:19PM +0000, Chintan Patel
wrote:
> Hi Libguestfs team,
> 
> I'm trying to build guestfs on Ubuntu 22.04, but getting below error.
> #17 8.021 checking for OCaml findlib package augeas... not found
> #17 8.024 configure: error: the OCaml module 'augeas' is required
> 
> By guestfs-building doc I need to get the package from https://
> people.redhat.com/~rjones/augeas/. But there is not instructions on how and
> where to place the package .tar file? I downloaded the .tar and untar it to
/
> usr/local/ but that does not help. 
> 
> Can anyone please help on how to resolve this issue?
In addition to Laszlo's answer, an alterative is to compile libguestfs
from git after reverting this commit:

https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/commit/fbf7fe87933ac24dd78362a16117c42e40da4c0f

This will "rebundle" ocaml-augeas.

However I would recommend working with the Debian developers to get
ocaml-augeas added to Debian as that will make everyone's life easier.

Rich.
> Thanks,
> Chintan
> 
> OCaml bindings for Augeas
> ocaml-augeas, augeas bindings for OCaml, at Richard Jones's home page,
Emerging
> Technologies, Red Hat
> people.redhat.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Libguestfs mailing list
> Libguestfs at redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs

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