Thread: Errors while installing PostGIS by an unusual method

I am trying to install PostGIS on a RHEL_5 system and failing at it miserably. The way I am trying to install it is as follows. I copy over all the artifacts of postgresql server as in the bin, lib, share directories of postgresql server in a directory called pgql and I place it in the root directory i.e /pgsql is the directory which contains things like pg_config and all the other libs and bins that one gets by installing postgresql using the standard installation. All the dependencies of PostGIS get installed successfully using the standard build process of ./configure --prefix=/pgsql, make and make install but when I issue the following command for building PostGIS using the same process :

./configure --with-gdalconfig=/pgsql/bin/gdal-config --with-geosconfig=/pgsql/bin/geos-config --with-projdir=/pgsql --with-jsondir=/pgsql --with-pgconfig=/pgsql/bin/pg_config

I get the following error in the configure step :

checking PostgreSQL version... PostgreSQL 9.6

checking libpq-fe.h usability... no

checking libpq-fe.h presence... no

checking for libpq-fe.h... no

configure: error: could not find libpq-fe.h"

to remedy this error I tried placing the include files in the include directory of postgresql by find the appropriate path using

/pgsql/bin/pg_config --includedir

and then when I try to install PostGIS, it still fails. Can anyone suggest some workaround to build PostGIS using this non-standard approach of building PostGIS?

Edit: When I try to add all the include files which includes the libpq-fe.h and libpq headers as well along with other header I get the following error when configuring PostGIS

checking for PQserverVersion in -lpq... no

configure: error: could not find libpq

Ankit Sablok <ankitsab@buffalo.edu> writes:
> I am trying to install PostGIS on a RHEL_5 system and failing at it
> miserably. The way I am trying to install it is as follows. I copy over all
> the artifacts of postgresql server as in the bin, lib, share directories of
> postgresql server in a directory called pgql and I place it in the root
> directory i.e /pgsql is the directory which contains things like pg_config
> and all the other libs and bins that one gets by installing postgresql
> using the standard installation.

(1) did you remember the include directory?

(2) I think this process will not work unless /pgsql was also the install
directory on the source machine.  You can check that by running pg_config
by hand and seeing what it prints for INCLUDEDIR, but it looks to me like
it just parrots what PG's configure expected the installation path to be.

(This is assuming that PostGIS's configure even pays attention to what
pg_config says for INCLUDEDIR.  I've not checked.)

Is there a good reason why you're not building Postgres on the same
machine where you're building PostGIS?  It seems like a recipe for
trouble, with little to be gained.

                        regards, tom lane

Thanks for replying Tom and Asif, I think the issue was that libpq.so present in the /pgsql/lib directory did not have all its dependencies installed on the system namely openssl hence I execute the command sudo yum install openssl and that proceeded the configure script forward, but now I ran into a separate issue where I do see libxml2 libraries present in the /pgsql/lib directory and I have also set the appropriate PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH for the build to happen successfully, here is the configure log when I execute the following command

./configure --with-gdalconfig=/pgsql/bin/gdal-config --with-geosconfig=//pgsql/bin/geos-config --with-projdir=/pgsql --with-jsondir=/rdsdbbin/apg-1.0.6.2 --with-pgconfig=/pgsql/bin/pg_config --with-libxml2=/pgsql/bin/xml2-config

configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-libxml2

checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

checking how to print strings... printf

checking for gcc... gcc

checking whether the C compiler works... yes

checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out

checking for suffix of executables... 

checking whether we are cross compiling... no

checking for suffix of object files... o

checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes

checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes

checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed

checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /bin/sed

checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep

checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E

checking for fgrep... /bin/grep -F

checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld

checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes

checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)... /usr/bin/nm

checking the name lister (/usr/bin/nm) interface... BSD nm

checking whether ln -s works... yes

checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 1572864

checking whether the shell understands some XSI constructs... yes

checking whether the shell understands "+="... yes

checking how to convert x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu file names to x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu format... func_convert_file_noop

checking how to convert x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu file names to toolchain format... func_convert_file_noop

checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files... -r

checking for objdump... objdump

checking how to recognize dependent libraries... pass_all

checking for dlltool... no

checking how to associate runtime and link libraries... printf %s\n

checking for ar... ar

checking for archiver @FILE support... @

checking for strip... strip

checking for ranlib... ranlib

checking for gawk... gawk

checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm output from gcc object... ok

checking for sysroot... no

checking for mt... no

checking if : is a manifest tool... no

checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E

checking for ANSI C header files... yes

checking for sys/types.h... yes

checking for sys/stat.h... yes

checking for stdlib.h... yes

checking for string.h... yes

checking for memory.h... yes

checking for strings.h... yes

checking for inttypes.h... yes

checking for stdint.h... yes

checking for unistd.h... yes

checking for dlfcn.h... yes

checking for objdir... .libs

checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no

checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC -DPIC

checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC -DPIC works... yes

checking if gcc static flag -static works... no

checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes

checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes

checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) supports shared libraries... yes

checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... no

checking dynamic linker characteristics... GNU/Linux ld.so

checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate

checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes

checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes

checking whether to build shared libraries... yes

checking whether to build static libraries... yes

checking for gcc... (cached) gcc

checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... (cached) yes

checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes

checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... (cached) none needed

checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E

checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... (cached) /bin/grep

checking for ant... no

checking for cpp... /usr/local/bin/cpp

checking if gcc supports -Wall... yes

checking if gcc supports -Wmissing-prototypes... yes

checking if gcc supports -ffloat-store... yes

checking if gcc supports --exclude-libs... yes

checking for flex... flex

checking lex output file root... lex.yy

checking lex library... none needed

checking whether yytext is a pointer... no

checking for bison... bison -y

checking ieeefp.h usability... no

checking ieeefp.h presence... no

checking for ieeefp.h... no

checking termios.h usability... yes

checking termios.h presence... yes

checking for termios.h... yes

checking for vasprintf... yes

checking for asprintf... yes

checking for _LARGEFILE_SOURCE value needed for large files... no

checking whether isfinite is declared... yes

checking whether isfinite is declared... yes

checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl

checking for xsltproc... /usr/bin/xsltproc

checking for convert... no

configure: WARNING: ImageMagick does not seem to be installed. Documentation cannot be built

checking for dblatex... no

configure: WARNING: dblatex is not installed so PDF documentation cannot be built

checking for xmllint... /usr/bin/xmllint

configure: WARNING: could not locate Docbook stylesheets required to build the documentation

checking CUnit/CUnit.h usability... no

checking CUnit/CUnit.h presence... no

checking for CUnit/CUnit.h... no

configure: WARNING: could not locate CUnit required for unit tests

checking iconv.h usability... yes

checking iconv.h presence... yes

checking for iconv.h... yes

checking for libiconv_open in -liconv... no

checking for iconv_open in -lc... yes

checking for iconvctl... no

checking for libiconvctl... no

Using user-specified pg_config file: /pgsql/bin/pg_config

checking PostgreSQL version... PostgreSQL 9.6

checking libpq-fe.h usability... yes

checking libpq-fe.h presence... yes

checking for libpq-fe.h... yes

checking for PQserverVersion in -lpq... yes

checking for xml2-config... /usr/bin/xml2-config

checking libxml/tree.h usability... yes

checking libxml/tree.h presence... yes

checking for libxml/tree.h... yes

checking libxml/parser.h usability... yes

checking libxml/parser.h presence... yes

checking for libxml/parser.h... yes

checking libxml/xpath.h usability... yes

checking libxml/xpath.h presence... yes

checking for libxml/xpath.h... yes

checking libxml/xpathInternals.h usability... yes

checking libxml/xpathInternals.h presence... yes

checking for libxml/xpathInternals.h... yes

checking for xmlInitParser in -lxml2... no

configure: error: could not find libxml2

I am not sure how to fix that in general :(?

On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 5:37 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Ankit Sablok <ankitsab@buffalo.edu> writes:
> I am trying to install PostGIS on a RHEL_5 system and failing at it
> miserably. The way I am trying to install it is as follows. I copy over all
> the artifacts of postgresql server as in the bin, lib, share directories of
> postgresql server in a directory called pgql and I place it in the root
> directory i.e /pgsql is the directory which contains things like pg_config
> and all the other libs and bins that one gets by installing postgresql
> using the standard installation.

(1) did you remember the include directory?

(2) I think this process will not work unless /pgsql was also the install
directory on the source machine.  You can check that by running pg_config
by hand and seeing what it prints for INCLUDEDIR, but it looks to me like
it just parrots what PG's configure expected the installation path to be.

(This is assuming that PostGIS's configure even pays attention to what
pg_config says for INCLUDEDIR.  I've not checked.)

Is there a good reason why you're not building Postgres on the same
machine where you're building PostGIS?  It seems like a recipe for
trouble, with little to be gained.

                        regards, tom lane