make install assumes the existence of certain folders

[AtnNn]

Reported here: #4064 (comment)

    [10/13] INSTALL ./packaging/assets/docs/LICENSE /usr/local/share/doc/rethinkdb/copyright
install: cannot create directory `/usr/local/share/doc': No such file or directory
mk/install.mk:111: recipe for target 'install-docs' failed

[AtnNn]

Other directories that were reported missing are

/usr/local/share/doc
/usr/local/var
/usr/local/var/lib
/usr/local/var/lib/rethinkdb

[AtnNn]

RethinkDB's make install uses install -d to create directories. The manpage for install on my machine says that -d will create all components of the specified directories.

@grempe: Perhaps the install or checkinstall command that you used caused the errors you saw.

[grempe]

Well, I've only just recently started using checkinstall. I have used it with about 10 other software packages I've compiled and installed and never ran into this issue. I can't really vouch for it in combination with 'install -d' though.

I can't say for sure and I'd rather not try to uninstall and re-install to test right now.

[AtnNn]

@grempe if you still have the source folder wit the build artifacts, could you test make install DESTDIR="pwd/root" and see if it fails with the same error or creates the required directories in ./root?

[grempe]

That looks like it works cleanly.

glenn@rp1 ~/rethinkdb-2.0.2 $ make install DESTDIR="`pwd`/root"
    [1/6] INSTALL build/release_system/rethinkdb /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/bin
    [2/6] INSTALL build/release_system/assets/rethinkdb.1.gz /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/share/man/man1
    [3/6] INSTALL ./packaging/assets/docs/LICENSE /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/share/doc/rethinkdb/copyright
    [4/6] INSTALL ./packaging/assets/init/rethinkdb /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/etc/init.d
    [5/6] INSTALL /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/var/lib/rethinkdb/instances.d
    [6/6] INSTALL /home/glenn/rethinkdb-2.0.2/root/usr/local/etc/rethinkdb/default.conf.sample


glenn@rp1 ~/rethinkdb-2.0.2 $ ls -laR root/
root/:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 usr

root/usr:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 local

root/usr/local:
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 bin
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 etc
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 share
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 var

root/usr/local/bin:
total 185396
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn      4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn      4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 glenn glenn 189834814 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb

root/usr/local/etc:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 init.d
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb

root/usr/local/etc/init.d:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 glenn glenn 7550 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb

root/usr/local/etc/rethinkdb:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 glenn glenn 2790 Jun 10 21:14 default.conf.sample
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 instances.d

root/usr/local/etc/rethinkdb/instances.d:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..

root/usr/local/share:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 doc
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 man

root/usr/local/share/doc:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb

root/usr/local/share/doc/rethinkdb:
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn  4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn  4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 glenn glenn 10501 Jun 10 21:14 copyright

root/usr/local/share/man:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 man1

root/usr/local/share/man/man1:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 glenn glenn  343 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb.1.gz

root/usr/local/var:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 lib

root/usr/local/var/lib:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 rethinkdb

root/usr/local/var/lib/rethinkdb:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 instances.d

root/usr/local/var/lib/rethinkdb/instances.d:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 glenn glenn 4096 Jun 10 21:14 ..

[AtnNn]

Thanks for testing. It looks like install -d works as expected.

I believe you stumbled upon this bug in certain versions of checkinstall:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/checkinstall/+bug/78455

If anyone else has the same problem, here are some possible workarounds:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/7900910/243581