On 2020-12-25 at 08:55, Andrei POPESCU wrote: > On Vi, 25 dec 20, 06:38:14, gru...@mailfence.com wrote:
>> over the years i've noticed that some command files are put in what >> i would call not usual locations for example >> /usr/lib/dropbear/dropbearconvert > > dpkg -L is very helpful in such cases. Or, if the package isn't installed, 'apt-file show'. In this case: $ apt-file show dropbear-bin | grep -v /usr/share/ dropbear-bin: /usr/bin/dbclient dropbear-bin: /usr/bin/dropbearconvert dropbear-bin: /usr/bin/dropbearkey dropbear-bin: /usr/lib/dropbear/dropbearconvert dropbear-bin: /usr/sbin/dropbear Both /usr/bin/dropbearconvert and /usr/lib/dropbear/dropbearconvert exist, although in the dropbear-bin package rather than the dropbear package itself. I don't have it installed so I can't easily check, but at a glance, this looks like a pattern I've seen before; I think the first time was in the Firefox packages, back long enough ago that Iceweasel hadn't become a thing yet. In this pattern, invoking the actual binary directly won't give the desired results; you need to pass it appropriate arguments. To let invoking the bare command name provide reasonable behavior, the package maintainer installs the binary somewhere else (usually under /usr/lib/) and provides a wrapper script (usually under /usr/bin/) which determines the right arguments and invokes the actual binary. There's also another form, in which the binary needs to have other files (and/or even subdirectories) exist under its install path, which is clearly not suitable for installing it into PATH. In that case, again you wind up with a wrapper script, which simply serves to invoke the binary from its more-complex-accompanying-files install location. (There's also a variant of that second form, in which the binary must be invoked from the directory where it is installed in order for it to find all those other files it needs, and the wrapper script changes to the correct directory before invoking the binary. That's relatively uncommon, though, AFAIK.) If 'file /usr/bin/dropbearconvert' reports that it's a script, and 'file /usr/lib/dropbearconvert' reports that it's a binary, then you're probably looking at one form or another of that pattern. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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