Installing package with a "servers" file (replacing the "servers" directory) will freeze the system.

[pulkomandy]

The BRexx package (recently added to ​eu.hpkg repo) comes with a server. Naturally it is added to the "servers" directory.

Installing this package will freeze Haiku (no matter if using pkgman or haikudepot).

[pulkomandy]

Ok, after a bit of sleep and more careful investigation, it turns out there was a problem in the package creation. It does not contain a "servers" dir, but it contains a file of that name at the same path.

This explains why things stop working: overriding the "servers" directory with a file is not a good idea.

Should the package system be a bit more protective against such errors?

[waddlesplash]

Well, the system should not freeze no matter what happens, so we should fix that bug.

[leavengood]

1. The package creation should not allow files in the package to overwrite system directories at all.
2. Activating a package should also surely ignore those and complain to the user.
3. Even if 1 and 2 were not done, as waddlesplash says, it should not lock up the system.

I may look at this while checking out package stuff.

[waddlesplash]

The package creation should not allow files in the package to overwrite system directories at all.

This part was already done last year (by me) as part of a fix to a different ticket -- nodes (i.e. files and directories) from packages with the "system package" flag set now have precedence over any and all other package nodes.

[ttcoder]

Replying to waddlesplash:

This part was already done last year (by me) as part of a fix to a different ticket -- nodes (i.e. files and directories) from packages with the "system package" flag set now have precedence over any and all other package nodes.

Am I reading too much into that statement, or does that mean I can no longer override the HDA driver (/boot/system/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/hda) with my own package's, and I have to build Haiku from scratch in order to do so ?

[waddlesplash]

Replying to ttcoder:

Am I reading too much into that statement, or does that mean I can no longer override the HDA driver (/boot/system/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/hda) with my own package's

You cannot put a "normal package" in and override said HDA driver without doing anything else, but you can still override a file. You just now must do either one of the following in addition:

1) Blacklist the "haiku" package's "hda" driver (as blacklists are package-specific this will not affect your package, of course) -- requires modifying a settings file on each machine you want to install the package on.

2) Set the "system_package" flag on said package. This just means adding ​a single line to the .PackageInfo. So this is pretty easy and probably the route you want to take.

In either case you definitely don't need to rebuild Haiku from scratch.

[ttcoder]

Ok that will take a bit of retooling, but that's reasonable thx