From: Ken Bloom <kbloom@...>
Date: 2008-01-21T08:39:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Gem post-install script or files outside the gem hierarchy

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:38:16 -0500, Jim Cain wrote:

> Is it possible for a gem to run a post-install script or write files
> outside of the gem directory structure? I am specifically needing to
> write config files to /etc and startup files to /etc/init.d and then run
> chkconfig to create the proper symlinks.

What's chkconfig? It doesn't exist on my Debian system. (Alternatively, 
one could ask "What's /etc? It doesn't exist on my Windows system.")

You're not distributing Ruby software. You're distributing UNIX software 
which happens to be written in Ruby. You should look at some alternate 
way to distribute your software, most likely distributing it as a tarball 
with an installation script, and with its dependencies documented, and 
documenting the proper procedure to set up init symlinks after 
installation.

Also, target your software for the Linux Standard Base, not for RedHat. 
See http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-
Core-generic/initsrcinstrm.html for the right way to install init scripts.

--Ken

-- 
Ken (Chanoch) Bloom. PhD candidate. Linguistic Cognition Laboratory.
Department of Computer Science. Illinois Institute of Technology.
http://www.iit.edu/~kbloom1/