Jason's Home Page - Linux HOWTOs

coreutils - Replacement for GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils ChangeLog

Web site:	https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
Repository:	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git
Wikipedia:	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Core_Utilities

HOWTO

# GNU coreutils 9.4
# =================
# coreutils first appeared in Slackware 9.1, prior to that there were
# individual "fileutils", "sh-utils", and "textutils" packages.
# Slackware 9.1 was released in 2003.  Cleaning up of fileutils, sh-utils,
# and textutils is no longer handled in here.

# Slackware 14.0: coreutils 8.19
# Slackware 14.1: coreutils 8.21
# Slackware 14.2: coreutils 8.25
# Slackware 15.0: coreutils 9.0

# Considering that this process can be dangerous if anything goes wrong
# (you're replacing cp, echo, ls, rm, and many other _critical_ utilities),
# if you don't feel comfortable doing this, you may be better off upgrading
# Slackware itself or using a package instead:
# http://www.slackware.com/
# http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware64-current/
# https://packages.slackware.com/
# https://slackbuilds.org/
# https://download.liveslak.org/

# Prerequisites:
# autoconf and automake (if you modify configure.ac or Makefile.*)
# gawk
# grep
# glibc's iconv or libiconv
# OpenSSL (optional)
# GMP (optional)
# bison >= 2.4
# Perl >= 5.005
# gettext

# If you have trouble getting it from the download URL below:
# https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/
# https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/coreutils/ (automatic redirect)
# https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html (GNU mirrors)

# coreutils-announce: coreutils-9.4 released [stable]
# Savannah: coreutils-9.4 released
# GNU coreutils manual
# GNU Core Utilities Frequently Asked Questions
# gitweb interface for Git repository
# gcit interface for Git repository
# GitHub mirror of Git repository

# Get the source tarball
cd
test -f installed/coreutils-9.4.tar.xz &&
mv installed/coreutils-9.4.tar.xz .
test ! -f coreutils-9.4.tar.xz &&
wget https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/coreutils/coreutils-9.4.tar.xz

# Verify tarball w/ sha256sum from any coreutils version:
# (this is from my already-verified tarball)
echo "ea613a4cf44612326e917201bbbcdfbd301de21ffc3b59b6e5c07e040b275e\
52  coreutils-9.4.tar.xz" | sha256sum -c

# Verify tarball w/ cksum from coreutils >= 9.2:
# (this base64 encoded checksum is from the release announcement)
echo "6mE6TPRGEjJukXIBu7zfvTAd4h/8O1m25cB+BAsnXlI=  coreutils-9.4.tar.xz" | \
cksum -a sha256 -c

# You can also create the base64-encoded checksum for comparison
# openssl is from OpenSSL
# sha256sum is from coreutils
# shasum is from Perl
# xxd is from vim
#  sha256sum coreutils-9.4.tar.xz | xxd -r -p | base64
#  shasum -a 256 coreutils-9.4.tar.xz | xxd -r -p | base64
#  openssl sha256 -binary coreutils-9.4.tar.xz | openssl base64

# Verify tarball w/ gpg:
( gpg --list-keys 6C37DC12121A5006BC1DB804DF6FD971306037D9 > \
/dev/null 2>&1 ||
  gpg --recv-keys 6C37DC12121A5006BC1DB804DF6FD971306037D9 ) &&
wget -nc http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.4.tar.xz.sig &&
  gpg --verify coreutils-9.4.tar.xz.sig && rm coreutils-9.4.tar.xz.sig

# Extract the source
mkdir -p -m 0700 ~/src
cd ~/src
find -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "coreutils-*" -exec rm -r {} \;
tar xJvf ~/coreutils-9.4.tar.xz
cd coreutils-9.4
test $UID = 0 && chown -R root:root .

# If you need to alter the source, run the ./bootstrap script
# See ./README-install

# Some utilities that are part of coreutils are included with other packages
# too:
#   hostname (tcpip/net-tools and util-linux)
#   kill (util-linux and procps/procps-ng)
#   su (shadow)
#   uptime (procps/procps-ng)
#
# coreutils, hostname and su are already not installed by default
# no need to use --enable-no-install-program for those

# Configure the build
DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209 \
./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin --sysconfdir=/etc \
--infodir=/usr/info --mandir=/usr/man \
--enable-install-program=arch \
--enable-no-install-program=kill,uptime

# Build it
make

# Check the build
make -k check | tee log
grep FAIL log

# Become root to clean up old files and to install it
su

# Check the build as root
make -k check-root | tee log
grep FAIL log
rm log

# If you did not have these critical core utilities, you would be, well,
# screwed.  So, either keep the package tarball itself just in case, and
# hope that you can re-install it, or copy a select few in to a backup
# directory.  If everything goes very badly, at least you could run them
# directly with their full path.
mkdir -p -m 0700 ~/backup/coreutils
( cd /bin
  cp -a cat chmod chown cp echo ls mkdir mv rm ~/backup/coreutils/ )

# Because we can't actually use removepkg to remove the old coreutils,
# because removepkg itself uses the programs in coreutils, remove
# files from old versions of coreutils manually:
rm -f /etc/DIR_COLORS /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.csh \
/etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh /usr/info/coreutils.info.gz
find /usr/doc -maxdepth 1 -type d -name "coreutils-*" -exec rm -r {} \;
( cd /
  grep -E "^usr/man/man1/.*\.1\.gz$" \
   /var/adm/packages/coreutils-* | xargs rm )
find /usr/share/locale -type f -name coreutils.mo -exec rm {} \;

# Move the old package files, if there are any, to make them appear as if
# they were removed by removepkg:
  find /var/adm/packages -type f -name "coreutils-*" \
   -exec mv -f {} /var/adm/removed_packages/ \;
  find /var/adm/scripts -type f -name "coreutils-*" \
   -exec mv -f {} /var/adm/removed_scripts/ \;

# Install it
make install

# Create symlinks from /bin to /usr/bin
for file in [ arch b2sum base32 base64 basename basenc cat chcon chgrp \
chmod chown chroot cksum comm cp csplit cut date dcgen dd df dir \
dircolors dirname du echo env expand expr factor false fmt fold getlimits \
ginstall groups head hostid id join link ln logname ls make-prime-list \
md5sum mkdir mkfifo mknod mktemp mv nice nl nohup nproc numfmt od paste \
pathchk pinky pr printenv printf ptx pwd readlink realpath rm rmdir runcon \
seq sha1sum sha224sum sha256sum sha384sum sha512sum shred shuf sleep sort \
split stat stdbuf stty sum sync tac tail tee test timeout touch tr true \
truncate tsort tty uname unexpand uniq unlink users vdir wc who whoami yes;
do
  test -e /usr/bin/${file} && rm -f /usr/bin/${file}
  ln -sf /bin/${file} /usr/bin/${file}
done

# Create symlinks for install|ginstall
rm -f /usr/bin/ginstall /usr/bin/install /bin/ginstall
ln -sf /bin/install /bin/ginstall
ln -sf /bin/install /usr/bin/ginstall
ln -sf /bin/install /usr/bin/install
rm -f /usr/man/man1/ginstall.1
ln -sf /usr/man/man1/install.1 /usr/man/man1/ginstall.1

# If you want a more robust profile script, see Slackware source for
# a (gzipped) .sh and a .csh version.  The same location also has a (gzipped)
# /etc/DIR_COLORS that you cold use, but that is not required.
# http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware64-15.0/source/a/coreutils/
#
# Otherwise, create a /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh which will set
# 'ls' with some common options and set up the LS_COLORS variable.
# If you have a really old version of Slackware that doesn't have
# /etc/profile.d/, add the alias line to /etc/profile (or ~/.bash_login or
# ~/.profile or ~/.bash_aliases) instead.  dir and vdir aliases are not
# necessary, coreutils includes a copy of 'cp' as /bin/dir and /bin/vdir,
# but you want to keep those aliases if you want color support.
echo '#!/bin/sh' > /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "alias ls='ls --color=auto -F -b -T 0'" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "alias dir='dir --color=auto'" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "alias vdir='vdir --color=auto'" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "alias d=dir" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "alias v=vdir" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
echo "eval \`/bin/dircolors -b\`" >> /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh
chmod +x /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh

# Make sure your non-root user can remove the source later
chown -R $(logname) .
chmod -R u+w .

# Become yourself again
exit

# Source coreutils-dircolors.sh so set the aliases and variables for
# your current shell (or log out, log in)
. /etc/profile.d/coreutils-dircolors.sh

# Save the source for later
cd
mkdir -p -m 0700 installed
rm -f installed/coreutils-*.tar.*
mv coreutils-9.4.tar.xz installed/

# Keep an eye out for scripts that use the many utils in this package.  If
# you find a script that is hard coded to use the path of a coreutils utility
# that isn't used any more, either update the script(s) to point to the new
# path, replace that part of the script with a call to which (`which ls` will
# cause the script to find where ls is and output it), or create a symlink
# from the binary to where the script thinks it is.