net-tools deprecated, not neccessarily installed or on PATH

[ari-s]

net-tools is deprecated for years and not installed in some debian and ubuntu setups. also in debian it's not on a user's $PATH, even when it is installed. gitian-builder calls ifconfig in libexec/config-lxc:

$ git grep ifconfig
README.md:    sudo ifconfig lxcbr0 10.0.3.1/24 up
etc/lxc.config.in:#     ifconfig lxcbr0 up 10.0.3.1
libexec/config-lxc:if ifconfig $LXC_BRIDGE > /dev/null 2>&1; then

this results in a misleading error message:

Must configure lxcbr0 - check the README

even when lxcbr0 is configured but ifconfig not installed / not in $PATH

one option would be to introduce an explicit dependency on net-tools and use /sbin/ifconfig, however the way forward would be just to switch to ip.

I could fork, patch and pull-request, would this be appreciated?

[josephbisch]

I think you may be using a fork of gitian-builder? When I run git grep ifconfig, I don't have the following line:

libexec/config-lxc:if ifconfig $LXC_BRIDGE > /dev/null 2>&1; then

and it seems like devrandom/gitian-builder master uses br0 instead of lxcbr0 for the bridge. So, if I were you, I would try to figure out where you got gitian-builder or what version you have.

In any case, yes, we should switch to recommending the use of ip instead of ifconfig. I know that I for one would welcome such a PR. It is hard enough to get gitian set up without needing to figure out which package ifconfig belongs to, or figuring out the corresponding ip commands.

[ari-s]

oh, you're right, my mistake - I'm trying to build torbrowser. Anyway, I'm putting this on my todo-list :)