Hi there, On Sun, 15 Jan 2012, Stephen Butler wrote:
I'd welcome any cure to my confusion :)
Here it is. :) Shorter version: cd /path/to/clamav-0.97.3-or-whatever-source-version-you-have ./configure --help | less -S Read and enjoy, the particular bit you're looking for starts with 'Fine tuning'. Longer version: When built from source, in common with many other open source projects, ClamAV uses a shell script called 'configure' to prepare the source for building on a particular machine. The script is part of a complex software building package which does a tremendous job to make code portable across different computer architectures and operating systems and incidentally allows system administrators to keep things manageable. For more information about this system see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_build_system The 'configure' script is usually found in the top-level directory of the package that you're going to build. When you build the package from source, more or less the first thing you do is run this script. Most people just run it with no options, but if you care about where things will eventually be when the package is running, and about a lot of other things, then options are there for you. For example I like to have all my PID files and sockets under /var/run/ but the defaults in the assorted packages that I use are all over the place. A couple of command line options to the configure script for eaxh package is about all that's needed to keep my sanity. The source for a package such as ClamAV (excluding things like header files and such which form part of the oeprating system, library etc. build packages) is normally contained in a single directory. This directory is normally unpacked by a non-privileged user, somewhere beneath the home directory, from a 'tarball'. The configure script would then be run by that user. Once the script has been run, the next step is 'make', sometimes optionally 'make test' (or perhaps 'make check') all by the non-privileged user, and the final step is 'make install' usually as root or some other privileged user, so that parts that need to be in protected system areas can be written there. HTH -- 73, Ged. _______________________________________________ Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
