Add Recursion Guards for Workdir

[RIGIK93]

Ran the following in the same folder as build_root

fpm --workdir . --verbose -s dir -t deb -n clion -v 2026.1.1 -C build_root --description "A cross-platform IDE for C and C++ by JetBrains" --maintainer "RIGIK93" .

this turned into a recursive packaging as tmp was created inside the build_root, which immediately occupied all of the free space on my hard drive. Could you add a guard against such recursion for idiots like me?

[jordansissel]

Ouch - good catch. I agree it would be useful for fpm to check for and prevent this condition

[jordansissel]

Can I ask - what made you want to set the workdir flag? was the default workdir not good for your use case? Something else?

[RIGIK93]

Can I ask - what made you want to set the workdir flag? was the default workdir not good for your use case? Something else?

Sure! The Clion project was pretty heavy, so fpm took a few minutes on the tar creation step and then outputted this error:

Process failed: tar failed (exit code 2). Full command was:["tar", "-C", "/tmp/package-dir-staging-ecd8b3672f022ed755b90331a05012482f8045f515a742a1fbd595dd2745", "-z", "--numeric-owner", "--owner", "0", "--numeric-owner", "--group", "0", "-cf", "/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607b
f79e1f1d/data.tar.gz", "."] {:level=>:error}

Gemini suggested my tmp didn't have enough space (my root and home are on different lvms and root likely didn't have enough space), so I decided to set the workdir to home, which had 50 gb free (as opposed to 10 on my root).

Here's the full log before the error in case you need it:

Setting workdir {:workdir=>"/tmp", :level=>:info}
Setting from flags: description=A cross-platform IDE for C and C++ by JetBrains {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: epoch= {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: iteration= {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: maintainer=RIGIK93 {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: name=clion {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: url=http://example.com/no-uri-given {:level=>:info}
Setting from flags: version=2026.1.1 {:level=>:info}
Converting dir to deb {:level=>:info}
Creating boilerplate changelog file {:level=>:info}
Reading template {:path=>"/home/rigik93d/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/fpm-1.17.0/templates/deb/changelog.erb", :level=>:info}
No deb_installed_size set, calculating now. {:level=>:info}
Reading template {:path=>"/home/rigik93d/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.3.0/gems/fpm-1.17.0/templates/deb.erb", :level=>:info}
Creating {:path=>"/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607bf79e1f1d/control.tar.gz", :from=>"/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607bf79e1f1d/control", :level=>:info}
Running command {:args=>["tar", "-C", "/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607bf79e1f1d/control", "-z", "-cf", "/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607bf79e1f1d/control.tar.gz", "--owner=0", "--group=0", "--numeric-owner", "."], :level=>:info}
gzip: warning: GZIP environment variable is deprecated; use an alias or script {:level=>:info}
Running command {:args=>["tar", "-C", "/tmp/package-dir-staging-ecd8b3672f022ed755b90331a05012482f8045f515a742a1fbd595dd2745", "-z", "--numeric-owner", "--owner", "0", "--numeric-owner", "--group", "0", "-cf", "/tmp/package-deb-build-e45a9a990a3a697a29fc2435ddb8104dc2fb69b46b14d543607bf79e1f1d/data.tar.gz", "."], :level
=>:info}
gzip: warning: GZIP environment variable is deprecated; use an alias or script {:level=>:info}

Funny enough, after I restarted the system, I could build the .deb successfully without setting the workdir. Error did not appear again after the system restart

[RIGIK93]

Thank you for developing this tool, btw! It's very useful for normie linux users like me who are too lazy to make debian control files