Document required build tool versions

I cannot find the minimum version of Autoconf that Tor should support. This makes it difficult to improve upon the build configuration without accidentally using functionality not supported by older versions of Autoconf.

My suggestions are to

• use AC_PREREQ in configure.ac.
• move AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS from Makefile.am to configure.ac to have all the version configuration in one file.
• document the versions in one of the doc/HACKING files.

I am willing to write a patch with these changes if someone could tell me the minimum Autoconf version Tor should support.

changed milestone to %Tor: 0.2.8.x-final

added component::core tor/tor milestone::Tor: 0.2.8.x-final priority::medium resolution::fixed severity::minor status::closed type::defect version::tor unspecified labels

Good idea; I'm afraid I don't know how far back we support, though. One place to start would be to figure out what versions we do support now, and then consider whether that's too permissive/restrictive.

Trac:
Milestone: N/A to Tor: 0.2.8.x-final

To avoid recompiling Tor with the Cartesian product of all released versions of Autoconf and Automake to see which ones are supported, i have made a table of the versions available on Debian and Ubuntu per release. The releases reflect the releases which Jenkins is currently testing. The list also includes the versions available with Homebrew on OS X, Cygwin on Windows and some BSDs.

Debian	squeeze	wheezy	jessie	stretch	sid
Autoconf	2.67	2.69	2.69	2.69	2.69
Automake	1.11.1	1.11.6	1.14.1	1.15	1.15
Ubuntu	precise	trusty	vivid	wily	xenial
Autoconf	2.68	2.69	2.69	2.69	2.69
Automake	1.11.3	1.14.1	1.14.1	1.15	1.15
OS X	Homebrew	MacPorts	Fink
Autoconf	2.69	2.69	2.63
Automake	1.15	1.15	1.15^1
Windows	Cygwin (x86)	Cygwin (x86_64)
Autoconf	2.69	2.69
Automake	1.15	1.15
BSD	FreeBSD	OpenBSD	NetBSD
Autoconf	2.69	2.69	2.69
Automake	1.15	1.15	1.15
RHEL	RHEL 4	CentOS 5
Autoconf	2.59	2.59
Automake	1.9.2	1.9.6

^1 Fink has no default automake version, versions 1.10 - 1.15 are available.

Edit: teor added MacPorts and Fink on OS X.

Remaining questions

• Are all operating systems that Tor should support in the table?
• Is picking the oldest versions from the table the proper answer?

Historically, we sometimes get requests for RHEL/Centos support-- they typically have really old software versions.

The oldest version of RHEL still supported is RHEL 4 (till March 31, 2017 source). The oldest version of CentOS still supported is CentOS 5 (till March 31, 2017 source). I have added them to the table above.

RHEL 4 brought the minimum versions we should support down to Autoconf 2.59 and Automake 1.9.2. Are these reasonable requirements?

I'm not sure about Autoconf 2.59 and automake 1.9.2; those versions seem quite old.

Replying to nickm:

I'm not sure about Autoconf 2.59 and automake 1.9.2; those versions seem quite old.

Does tor currently do anything that breaks on those autoconf/automake versions? Does tor currently build/run on RHEL 4 or CentOS 5?

(If we've already done things to make them unsupported, we could declare that release X is the last release that supported them. If not, we could declare 0.2.7 the last release to support them.)

Sadly, I don't know whether those versions work these days or not.

FreeBSD ports and packages for majors 8 through 11 all use autoconf 2.69 and automake 1.15. 8 and earlier are EOL, packages for 8 are no longer updated but are still served up. 9 is done and will be EOL in one year. The older 8 box from tor-dev today used 2.69 and 1.14, no expectations there. http://pkg.freebsd.org/ http://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup

Latest DragonflyBSD, ArchLinux (and Fedora and OpenSuse) all use 2.69 and 1.15. http://avalon.dragonflybsd.org/dports/ https://www.archlinux.org/packages/

Latest GNU is 2.69 and 1.15.

Replying to teor:

Does tor currently build/run on RHEL 4 or CentOS 5?

0.2.6.10 builds fine and seems to run fine on CentOS 5. (Sorry, I can't test RHEL 4.)

However, CentOS 5 has openssl 0.9.8e. Tor 0.2.7.2-alpha dropped support for OpenSSL older than 1.0.0, so (even if you support the ancient versions of autoconf/automake) it won't build on CentOS 5 anyway. Going forward, Tor Project can probably stop caring about anything older than CentOS 6.

Trac:
Username: jamielinux

Trac:
Priority: Medium to High

Hm. I was going to say something about Centos5 users who have upgraded openssl, but if they have upgraded openssl they can surely upgrade autotools too.

So I have updated the configure.ac and Makefile.am to say that 2.63 and 1.11 are the required versions.

Fixed in commit 31c7a65d894c144647a2364bcad337ee5ae020ff

Trac:
Status: new to closed
Resolution: N/A to implemented

Trac:
0001-Move-Automake-options-to-configure.ac.patch

Replying to nickm:

Hm. I was going to say something about Centos5 users who have upgraded openssl, but if they have upgraded openssl they can surely upgrade autotools too.

So I have updated the configure.ac and Makefile.am to say that 2.63 and 1.11 are the required versions.

Fixed in commit 31c7a65d894c144647a2364bcad337ee5ae020ff This only fixes the first point of the ticket description.

I have attached a patch to fix the second point (and some typos). Reopening to get this applied.

The third point is IMO not necessary anymore because the configuration is self-documenting. It would also increase the chance of the configuration and the documentation getting out of sync.

Trac:
Status: closed to reopened
Priority: High to Medium
Resolution: implemented to N/A

Trac:
Status: reopened to needs_review

Applied; thanks!

Trac:
Reviewer: N/A to N/A
Status: needs_review to closed
Resolution: N/A to fixed

closed

moved to tpo/core/tor#17732 (closed)