Bug#391248: autoconf: produces syntax error in configure script

["Oliver Kurth" <okurth@gmail.com>]

On 10/5/06, Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> reassign 391248 ssh
> tags 391248 + patch upstream
> thanks
>
> "Oliver Kurth" <okurth@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I am trying to compile openssh-4.3p2 (upstream). It requires a few
> > changes in the configure script to cross-compile, so I need to run
> > autoconf, but it also happens without these changes, after unpacking
> > the tarball:
> >
> > $ autoconf
> > $ ./configure
> > checking for gcc... gcc
> > ...
> > checking for (overly) strict mkstemp... yes
> > checking if openpty correctly handles controlling tty... yes
> > ./configure: line 16385: syntax error near unexpected token `]]'
> > ./configure: line 16385: `]])'
> >
> > I tried this on other (non-Debian) systems with autoconf versions 2.57,
> > and it does not happen there.
>
> At almost 4000 lines long, plus countless system-specific hacks,
> the OpenSSH configure.ac is a horrible abuse of Autoconf that I
> shudder even to look at.  Thus, I'm not surprised to report that
> this is an upstream quoting bug.  Here's a fix:
>
> diff -up /home/blp/tmp/openssh-4.3p2/configure.ac\~ /home/blp/tmp/openssh-4.3p2/configure.ac
> --- /home/blp/tmp/openssh-4.3p2/configure.ac~   2006-02-08 03:11:06.000000000 -0800
> +++ /home/blp/tmp/openssh-4.3p2/configure.ac    2006-10-05 11:16:25.000000000 -0700
> @@ -1608,6 +1608,7 @@ main(void)
>                         AC_MSG_RESULT(no)
>                         AC_DEFINE(BROKEN_GETADDRINFO)
>                 ],
> +               [
>                         AC_MSG_RESULT(cross-compiling, assuming no)
>                 ]
>         )
>
> I'm reassigning this bug to OpenSSH.

No, it's not the openssh debian package's fault.

What I am trying to do is compile an upstream (not: debian source)
openssh tarball. It's upstream openssh that has the bug - but I
thought it's autoconf because it does not happen with older versions
of autoconf (and I verified after I reported the bug that autoconf
2.59, compiled directly from source also works fine).

But, thanks for the patch. It will help me a lot :-)

Greetings,
Oliver
--
Reality has a liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
http://narrenheim.de/keep-it-simple/