open-vm-tools builds without fuse support when built with libfuse3-dev

[Graham Inggs]

Fuse3 is a requirement for qemu 6 (LP: #1934510). Since we don't want to support two versions of fuse in main, we'd like reverse-dependencies of fuse to switch to fuse3.

open-vm-tools built successfully in a test rebuild changing the build-dependency on libfuse-dev to libfuse3-dev, but without fuse support.

Excerpt from the build log:

checking for fuse (via pkg-config)... no
configure: WARNING: Fuse is missing, vmblock-fuse/vmhgfs-fuse will be disabled.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Added https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/314 that was identified by upstream as the related upstream issue (that is unfortunately dormant).

[Graham Inggs (ginggs)]

This is effectively a transition in main, so please don't upload until all of the other affected packages are ready.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

Branch supporting libfuse3 is ready at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/pull/544

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Thanks Marco, have you seen that there are some licensing shenanigans to pass there?

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

Hey Christian, not much from a first pass.

It's all GPL/LGPL code (check also https://salsa.debian.org/vmware-packaging-team/pkg-open-vm-tools/-/blob/master/debian/copyright), while I had to sign a CLA, but that's not a big deal.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 3:30 PM Marco Trevisan (Treviño)
<email address hidden> wrote:
...
> I had to sign a CLA, but that's not a big deal.

^^ that was what I meant as that was what the PR blocked on when I had
a look at it.
Thanks!

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Patched and working fine in a test build of 11.3.5 for Debian.
Thanks to Marco and John for all the work.

trying to complete this into becoming an upload ...

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

FYI Debian PR: https://salsa.debian.org/vmware-packaging-team/pkg-open-vm-tools/-/merge_requests/12
PPA build: https://launchpad.net/~ci-train-ppa-service/+archive/ubuntu/4745

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

I have updated open-vm-tools in debian and synced it to ubuntu - it uses fuse3 now.

But (as expected) it depends not only on libfuse3 (that was already promoted to main to easen the transition) but also on fuse3.

Hence I'd ask the Archive admins to please promote the binary "fuse3" to resolve the mismatch shown at [1].

The MIR bug for that is at [2] and already had promoted fuse3, but lacking a dependency it was auto-demoted since then.

[1]: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/component-mismatches-proposed.html
[2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fuse3/+bug/1934510/comments/20

[John Wolfe (johnwvmw)]

At VMware, we have made the following straight forward changes in the ./debian/control file.

   Build-Depends: libfuse-dev ===> libfuse3-dev

   open-vm-tools Recommends: fuse ==> fuse3

   open-vm-tools-desktop Recommends: fuse ==> fuse3

and in ./debian/open-vm-tools-desktop.postinst

   Tested for and loaded fuse3.

Please advise if VMware needs to make any changes to their internal Ubuntu open-vm-tools packaging.

Thanks.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package open-vm-tools - 2:11.3.5-1

---------------
open-vm-tools (2:11.3.5-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  [ Debian Janitor ]
  * Remove constraints unnecessary since buster

  [ Christian Ehrhardt ]
  * New upstream version 11.3.5 (LP: #1946836) (Closes: #995221)
    - Closes gcc-11 FTBFS, actually since 11.3.0 (Closes: #984272)
  * d/rules, d/open-vm-tools.lintian-overrides: The hgfsmounter (mount.vmhgfs)
    command has been removed from open-vm-tools
  * d/p/Update-open-vm-tools-to-build-with-either-Fuse-3-or-2.patch: allow to
    build against fuse 3
  * d/rules, d/control: switch to use fuse3 (LP: #1935665)

 -- Christian Ehrhardt <email address hidden> Tue, 04 Jan 2022 08:53:54 +0100

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi John:

> and in ./debian/open-vm-tools-desktop.postinst
>
> Tested for and loaded fuse3.

There is no fuse3 kernel module.
Only the userspace changed.

$ modinfo fuse
name: fuse
filename: (builtin)
alias: devname:fuse
alias: char-major-10-229
alias: fs-fuseblk
alias: fs-fuse
license: GPL
description: Filesystem in Userspace
author: Miklos Szeredi <email address hidden>
alias: fs-fusectl
parm: max_user_bgreq:Global limit for the maximum number of backgrounded requests an unprivileged user can set (uint)
parm: max_user_congthresh:Global limit for the maximum congestion threshold an unprivileged user can set (uint)

$ modinfo fuse3
modinfo: ERROR: Module fuse3 not found.

So that should not change.

Furthermore in all situations where configure can auto-detect one or the other it is wise to hard-select the one you want, so in the config stage I added --with-fuse=fuse3.

Overall this is what i did and would recommend to reflect in your repo:
https://salsa.debian.org/vmware-packaging-team/pkg-open-vm-tools/-/commit/d5176b54c3eab66396f4a05bd82e0853eb9e8a71

But then I'm not perfect - if you spot something missing on my end let me know!

> Please advise if VMware needs to make any changes to their internal Ubuntu open-vm-tools packaging.

[John Wolfe (johnwvmw)]

Hi Christen,

> $ modinfo fuse3
> modinfo: ERROR: Module fuse3 not found.
>
> So that should not change.

Thanks for catching that error in the open-vm-tools-desktop.postinst file.

> Furthermore in all situations where configure can auto-detect one or the other it is wise to hard-select the one you want, so in the config stage I added --with-fuse=fuse3.

I agree. Auto-defect is fine for experimentation at the configure level, selecting the specific configuration is necessary to coordinate with the packaging.

Thanks.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

FYI - we might have to tune that back to fuse2 until *all* dependencies are ready, see bug 1956949 and bug 1934510

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

FYI - Uploaded a switch to fuse3 until bug 1956949 and bug 1934510 and their deps are resolved.