Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] move qemu-ga from bin to libexec dir, use $HELPERS

[Michael Tokarev]

21.02.2013 17:35, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Il 16/02/2013 19:28, Michael Tokarev ha scritto:
>> This patch does 3 things:
>>
>> 1. Renames HELPERS-y Makefile variable to HELPERS
>> 2. Moves its definition from Makefile to configure
> 
> I prefer to have more decisions in Makefile than configure, but this
> wouldn't block the patch.  What we have now is a mess anyway.

What's the difference between checking for host OS type being
in makefile or configure?

Note that in this very case current condition is a bit wrong:
it should not only depend on linux but also about presence of
softmmu targets (which this patch fixes too).

>> 3. Moves qemu-ga binary from TOOLS to HELPERS.
>>
>> The effects are:
>>
>> 1. qemu-ga binary is now installed into libexecdir, not bindir.
>> This is the main effect/motivation of this patch, -- this binary
>> has no business being in a public binary directory, it is a system
>> helper which must be run by a system startup script or some event
>> daemon.
> 
> There is one difference, and an important one: qemu-ga does appear in
> system-wide configuration files, while qemu-bridge-helper does not.  In
> this sense, qemu-ga is not a helper executable.

Well, it definitely is not a user-callable binary.  In that sence it is a
"system helper" (as opposed to "qemu helper" for qemu-bridge-helper).  Ie,
either sbin or libexec, but not bin.  There's no sbindir handling currently, --
neither in makefile nor in configure, only "TOOLS" and "HELPERS" variables.

> I have no idea how virtfs-proxy-helper would work, but I suspect that a
> better design would have QEMU spawning it, just like qemu-bridge-helper.

QEMU can't spawn it, it is spawned in *guest* by a startup script or some
event daemon (such as systemd or udev).

Thanks,

/mjt