Arch Linux User Repository

Well, the issue is that I did some minor renovations to the package and one of them was moving the config files for Nginx and Apache from /etc/ to /usr/share/, on the basis of them being package-provided examples and not really meant for using as is.

I put a note about it in post_install() for new users, but not in post_upgrade() because, frankly, I didn't think that anyone would be using those files as is and so would be bitten by this sudden change.

But on second thought, maybe the change was dumb and I should have left things as they were (i.e. "don't fix what isn't broken"). Oh well, maybe I'll change it back come next update :P

After upgrade to today to 1.38.6 httpd can't find the config

httpd: Syntax error on line 545 of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf: Could not open > configuration file /etc/httpd/conf/extra/zoneminder.conf: No such file

Was able to fix it by copying the config file back from the example:

sudo cp /usr/share/zoneminder/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/extra/zoneminder.conf
sudo apachectl configtest
sudo systemctl restart httpd

Nope, it's not an error. It used to be that pod2man (not podman) was required for building and running ZM inside a locally built container image (or some such; I can't remember the issue exactly, but I do remember that I had tested for it at the time and verified it on my end as well), but it's been quite a few years since this optdepend was added to the PKGBUILD and it probably became silently redundant at some point (podman and containers in general have come a long way since back then) without me or anyone else realizing and/or bothering to mention it here in the comments (I mean, is there even anyone left anymore who uses this package as part of a locally built container image? I'd be surprised if that were the case, especially since upstream has been providing official Docker images for many years now).

I just read your discussion with @a821 in the mailing list and I agree that pod2man is practically useless and should be removed from the AUR, but since in this case it's just an optional dependency and so nothing will break if it goes missing, I'll just leave it in the PKGBUILD until the next update.

But you can safely consider this package as "fixed".

Hi, both this and the git variant have an optdepends on pod2man

'pod2man: required for Docker support'

but I'm pretty sure you instead mean podman https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/podman/ "A tool for managing OCI containers and pods."

pod2man instead is a symlinks to /usr/bin/core_perl/pod2man

Indeed it's not new, I checked the wiki and it's already mentioned there as well, so I don't think it's something that even warrants an extra note during installation. Why it appeared on the 1.38.2 changelog is a mystery to me though :)

It's not new. It has been always needed, from the first time I installed zoneminder. A quick look at journalctl pointed me to the permission issue, and I didn't think it was a "bug", but normal system administration. So, an installation notice it's enough IMHO. The fact that nobody complained here suggests that it is not a real issue.

Yep, that's what I had in mind as well, add a note about it in the install notes.

But just to verify, this is a new behavior of/requirement for 1.38.2, right? USB devices used to Just Work™ with Zoneminder 1.38.1 and older?

Yes Nocifer, I had to add http to the "video" group in order to open /dev/video* devices. But in my opinion a notice during the installation is enough -- it's up to the user then to add 'http' to 'video' if he needs to.

NOTE: The changelog for 1.38.2 contains the following tidbit:

www-data video group - Debian/Ubuntu postinst adds www-data to video and dialout groups so zmc can open /dev/video* on fresh installs (refs #4642)

It's possible that a similar tweak may be required on Arch Linux as well, i.e. add the http user to the video group. Unfortunately I don't have the means to test for this, so I'd appreciate it if someone can verify it and notify me about it.

@light9876 If you must do it by hand, then I'm guessing you're not using an AUR helper (like yay, paru, etc)?

Unfortunately that's the nature of the AUR: any and all packages, along with their dependencies, must be built from source (unless they're closed-source and distributed as binaries only). AUR helpers can help with that by largely automating the process, and in this case the Perl dependencies rarely if ever get any updates, so it should mostly be a "build them once, use them for a long time" scenario - perhaps, if you're not already doing so, you should be keeping the built dependencies around to be used for future rebuilds of Zoneminder instead of deleting them?