Bug#850967: Clarify /usr/bin/foo should not be hardcoded even in upstream parts
On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 10:04:34AM -0500, Sam Hartman wrote:
> >>>>> "Josh" == Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> writes:
>
> Josh> As another technical alternative, which I haven't seen
> Josh> mentioned elsewhere in this thread or related bug reports:
> Josh> when I need to override a packaged binary or file temporarily
> Josh> for debugging purposes, without forgetting to restore it
> Josh> later, I tend to use "mount --bind /my/replacement
> Josh> /usr/bin/foo". For instance, for local testing while
> Josh> developing dh-cargo, which required a newer version of Cargo
> Josh> than packaged in Debian at the time, I built a local version
> Josh> of Cargo and did "mount --bind ~/src/cargo/target/debug/cargo
> Josh> /usr/bin/cargo". That allowed me to easily test-build
> Josh> packages before the availability of a Debian package of a
> Josh> sufficiently new Cargo.
>
> O, cool, that's really need.
>
> And as a throw-back to an alternate Plan9 history, you could presumably
> unshare your mount namespace and even do that for a subset of the
> processes on a system, getting almost all the benefits of PATH.
Yes. Years ago, when Debian transitioned /bin/sh from bash to dash,
Marco d'Itri posted a sample workaround for any scripts assuming bash,
which involved unsharing the mount namespace, bind-mounting /bin/bash
over /bin/sh, and then exec'ing a program.
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