[bug-notifications] [alternatives 0004538]: Symbolic links not created in new sparse-root zone

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4538 
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Reported By:                gadavis
Assigned To:                phil
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Project:                    alternatives
Issue ID:                   4538
Category:                   regular use
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     feedback
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Date Submitted:             2010-08-31 22:19 CEST
Last Modified:              2011-05-25 15:09 CEST
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Summary:                    Symbolic links not created in new sparse-root zone
Description: 
There appears to be a bug in the alternatives mechanism when creating a new
sparse-root zone on Solaris 10 systems.

I have a global zone with CSW alternatives, CSWneon, CSWsudo, and
CSWsudo-common installed. The alternatives mechanism has registered the
symlinks in the right locations and alternatives --display neon and
alternatives --display sudo work as expected.

If I then create a new non-global zone with the default inherited paths
(your typical sparse-root zone), alternatives --display whatever shows the
correct paths listed, but the symlinks are not there.

After zone creation, I have to manually force the alternatives mechanism
to install the needed symlinks by running a shell loop:

for d in `ls /opt/csw/share/alternatives`; do 
	alt=`basename $d`; 
	alternatives --auto $alt; 
done

Note that if I uninstall CSWsudo inside the zone and then re-install it,
the alternatives mechanism works as expected. It's only upon initial zone
creation that the alternatives symlinks do not get created.
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 (0009074) jcraig (developer) - 2011-05-25 15:09
 https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4538#c9074 
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An elegant fix to this would be to have the "alternatives" binary use
installf/removef to manage the symlink and register the link to the
CSWalternatives package.  This would keep a valid reference in place as the
preference is changed and resolve package installation issues during zone
installs.

I tested this by calling installf for the sudo link and then installing a
new whole root zone.  Once installed, the sudo link existed.

As alternatives are implemented now, and given the statement that the only
supported zone implementation is a sparse CSW design, an end user gets one
and only one choice between alternatives for every zone on a particular
box.  This level of support is too narrow, in my opinion.