[LEDE-DEV] replacing files in base system from a package?

[Rafał Miłecki]

On 3 October 2016 at 15:26, Karl Palsson <karlp at tweak.net.au> wrote:
> What's the "new" way of doing this? In the past, in OpenWrt CC
> and before, a package could install files like /etc/banner and
> /etc/inittab that were provided by the base-files package. It was
> always listed as "unreliable" as apparently you couldn't rely on
> the order. In practice it actually worked just fine.
>
> Presently, LEDE actively prevents this, with the build scripts
> failing the build with
>
>
>  * check_data_file_clashes: Package blah wants to install file /home/karlp/src/lede-source/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl-1.1.15/root-ar71xx/etc/banner
>         But that file is already provided by package  * base-files
>  * check_data_file_clashes: Package blah wants to install file /home/karlp/src/lede-source/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl-1.1.15/root-ar71xx/etc/inittab
>         But that file is already provided by package  * base-files
>  * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package blah.
> package/Makefile:56: recipe for target 'package/install' failed
>
> Now, clearly I could just edit the base-files package in a forked
> repository. However, the motivation of using a package was to
> avoid forking LEDE. I've seen talks and presentations on this,
> "use a package!"
>
> What's the currently accepted mechanism for including replacement
> files in a custom build?

>From the discussion I can see that there isn't any clean solution for
that. You can use uci-defaults that will overwrite "default" files or
just use files subdirectory that doesn't really follow idea of using
packages for extra software & customizations.

I was thinking about dropping/changing check_data_file_clashes and
then adding some kind of priority for packages. It would determine the
order packages are being included on the rootfs. Unfortunately it's
behind me knowledge to modify rootfs building this way.

Felix, can we hear your opinion on this, please?

-- 
Rafał