Feature request: OS support for GNU/kFreeBSD

[Axel Beckert <beckert (at) phys.ethz.ch>]

Hi,

I tried to get hobbit compiling and running on Debian
GNU/kFreeBSD[1]. Getting it to compile was quite easy, getting it run,
too, but getting it work isn't[2].

  [1] http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
  [2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=458417

Getting the client run needed some more files to exist. Now I've got
an ugly but running client sending data to my hobbit
server. Unfortunately the server drops it with the message

2008-01-25 22:41:09 No client backend for OS 'gnu/kfreebsd' sent by [...]

In noticed that the reason for this is an OS switch() in
hobbitd/hobbitd_client.c line 1763 ff.

Back to the client:

Adding a new OS in general isn't difficult with hobbit on the client
side, you just copy some shell script, perhaps edit it and it
works. With GNU/kFreeBSD it
looks a little bit different:

  14/0/0 root (at) c-metisse:pts/ttyp3 22:49:51 [~] # uname -o
  GNU/kFreeBSD
  15/0/0 root (at) c-metisse:pts/ttyp3 22:49:54 [~] # 

There is a slash in the OS name. So all my workarounds are quite ugly
since they all involve the creation of directories to allow filenames
like

  hobbitclient-gnu/kfreebsd.sh

Not nice, but works.

The solution suggested by the GNU/kFreeBSD developers for this problem
is to replace all slashes in the output of "uname -o" with
underscores (written in Perlish: s(/)(_)g) so that the above example
would look like this:

  hobbitclient-gnu_kfreebsd.sh

Hernik: How do you think that problem is solved best from your view as
hobbit developer? You probably have more an idea which code may need
to be patch. I've lost the overview at the moment, since hobbit seems
to use the output of "uname -o" in a lot of places. Do you think, you
can generate a patch I can test? If not: with a few pointers to most
of the places in the source, I probably also can try to create a patch
on my own... Alternatively I should be able to get you an account on a
Test machine running Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. (I'm currently testing
inside a virtual machine using QEMU/KVM.)

P.S.: No, it's not for the job this time, it's for my own boxes and
those of friends. :-)

		Kind regards, Axel Beckert
-- 
Axel Beckert <beckert (at) phys.ethz.ch>       support: +41 44 633 2668
IT Support Group, HPR E 86.1              voice:   +41 44 633 4189
Departement Physik, ETH Zurich            fax:     +41 44 633 1239
CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland		  http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/