CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railstiny-tdsubuntu-20.04
Ymox
Ymox

Reputation: 329

Installing tiny_tds gem on Ubuntu 20.04 fails

I want to insall tiny_tds on Ubuntu 20.04, so I do

apt install freetds-dev

and the install the gem

gem install tiny_tds

Works like a charm on Ubuntu 18.04, but 20.04 fails. the last lines of the output are:

current directory: /home/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.7.0/gems/tiny_tds-2.1.2/ext/tiny_tds
make "DESTDIR=" install
make: /usr/bin/mkdir: Command not found
make: *** [Makefile:202: .sitearchdir.-.tiny_tds.time] Error 127

make install failed, exit code 2

Any ideas on how to work around this? I have Ubuntu 20.04, RVM with Ruby 2.7 active.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1989

Answers (2)

TrinitronX
TrinitronX

Reputation: 5243

Problem

This problem can be caused by upgrading your base OS, which may change the default paths for different tools such as mkdir. Normally, most shells follow the PATH to search for an executable. However, when you're installing gems using Ruby & RVM, there is a lot going on behind the scenes for compiling "native extensions". Traditionally many Unix, Linux & BSD (*nix) C / C++ projects will follow the standard ./configure && make && make install pattern. The ./configure script generally detect details about the system at build-time, then auto-generate a Makefile catered to that particular system. On GNU systems, the autotools maintainer tools are used to also auto-generate a POSIX compatible ./configure script, and Makefile.in template that can be used by ./configure to generate the final Makefile.

When gem install or bundle install needs to compile a native C / C++ extension for something, it also generates a Makefile with system-specific details. In this example, it's found that mkdir utility should be located at /usr/bin/mkdir.

As part of this process, the mkmkf gem is automatically generating a Makefile, usually from an extconf.rb script with a configuration matching your system, from RbConfig::CONFIG. However, in this case, the mkdir utility is actually located at /bin/mkdir. So, the RbConfig::CONFIG settings are now incorrect for your system. This probably happened because you upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04, but had old rubies installed to ~/.rvm already pre-configured for the older OS release.

So, this is caused by having incorrect RbConfig::CONFIG keys. In this case: MKDIR_P or MAKEDIRS.

Solution (Quick Hack Method)

Sometimes you just need a quick hack to fix a tool's path. This can work in a lot of cases, but sometimes can cause issues when your base OS has changed a lot. In cases like that, use the full clean & reinstall method below.

  1. Find your current rbconfig.rb file using RVM:

     find ~/.rvm/rubies/$(rvm current | cut -d@ -f1) -iname 'rbconfig.rb'

  2. Edit the file and fix the MKDIR_P and MAKEDIRS keys on the RbConfig::CONFIG object:

     # Your path may be different.  Use the one you found from Step #1
 $EDITOR ~/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.7.1/lib/ruby/2.7.0/x86_64-linux/rbconfig.rb
 # Now change the lines:
   CONFIG["MAKEDIRS"] = "/usr/bin/mkdir -p"
   CONFIG["MKDIR_P"] = "/usr/bin/mkdir -p"
 # To:
   CONFIG["MAKEDIRS"] = "/bin/mkdir -p"
   CONFIG["MKDIR_P"] = "/bin/mkdir -p"

  3. Save the file and retry your gem install command:

     gem install tiny_tds

Solution (Full Clean Reinstall Method)

Generally, editing rbconfig.rb by hand is not recommended because it's generated from the ./configure script when compiling Ruby itself. There are a lot of RbConfig::CONFIG keys & values which means there is a lot that could go wrong. For example: If some core system libraries changed places or versions, you'll probably run into problems related to linking against those old base OS libraries. In cases like this, it's best to just reinstall a ruby compiled against your base OS.

  1. Re-install your ruby

     # -j $(nproc) is optional... but can speed up your build by using multiple CPU cores.
 # If you don't have the 'nproc' tool, just pass the number of CPU cores to `-j`
 rvm reinstall --disable-binary  $(rvm current | cut -d@ -f1) -j $(nproc)

  2. Retry your gem install command:

     gem install tiny_tds

Upvotes: 3

Jonathan S.
Jonathan S.

Reputation: 138

I had a similar problem installing gems on Ubuntu 20.04. with RVM und Ruby 2.7. As stated, the make process could not find the mkdir command.

$ which mkdir
/bin/mkdir

Since the process is searching for the command in /usr/bin/mkdir it cannot be found. I could fix this by creating a symbolic link to the correct path:

sudo ln -s /bin/mkdir /usr/bin/mkdir

Upvotes: 10

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