I'm forwarding this to the list in case anyone finds themselves in the same situation. Bottom line is: don't put the trailing slash at the end of a path. So simple it is when you know it.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
On 22/03/2021 13:03, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> Hi,
>
> $ uname -a
> Linux e130 4.19.0-8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.98-1 (2020-01-26) x86_64
> GNU/Linux
> $ cat /etc/debian_version
> 10.2
>
>
> I have recently installed buster and I am running into problems with
> custom man pages.
>
> I have a pkgsrc [1] installation with a custom prefix /usr/pkg. Binaries
> are in /usr/pkg/bin and /usr/pkg/sbin and man pages are in /usr/pkg/man.
>
> Let's say I want to view the manual page of pkgin(1), I can see this
> page fine. It pulls it correctly from /usr/pkg/man/man1/pkgin.1
>
> However, neither apropos or whatis cannot see it:
>
> $ whatis pkgin
> pkgin: nothing appropriate.
> $ apropos pkgin
> pkgin: nothing appropriate.
>
>
> In my previous Debian installation, all I did was to add this line to
> /etc/manpath:
> MANDB_MAP /usr/pkg/man/ /usr/pkg/var/cache/man
>
> and then run `mandb -d` as root, however mandb this time complained that
> /usr/pkg/var/cache/man could not be created, even if I was root.
>
> So I added this:
> MANDB_MAP /usr/pkg/man/ /var/cache/man/pkg
>
> and run `mandb -d`` but the neither whatis nor apropos can read from
> /var/cache/man/pkg. I've tried both as root and single user to no avail.
>
> I have also added:
> MANDATORY_MANPATH /usr/pkg/man
>
> and:
> MANPATH_MAP /usr/pkg/bin /usr/pkg/man
> MANPATH_MAP /usr/pkg/sbin /usr/pkg/man
>
> and run:
> # mandb -d
> # mandb -c
>
> and it looks like the catdirs are created:
>
> $ ls -al /var/cache/man/pkg/
> total 1716
> drwxr-xr-x 7 man man 4096 Mar 22 12:44 .
> drwxr-xr-x 37 man man 4096 Mar 22 12:44 ..
> -rw-r--r-- 1 man man 190 Mar 22 12:00 CACHEDIR.TAG
> drwxr-xr-x 2 man man 4096 Mar 22 11:56 cat1
> drwxr-xr-x 2 man man 4096 Mar 22 11:56 cat3
> drwxr-xr-x 2 man man 4096 Mar 22 11:56 cat5
> drwxr-xr-x 2 man man 4096 Mar 22 11:56 cat7
> drwxr-xr-x 2 man man 4096 Mar 22 11:56 cat8
> -rw-r--r-- 1 man man 1724416 Mar 22 12:01 index.db
>
>
> but still to no avail for whatis/apropos.
>
> My full /etc/manpath.conf is here:
>
https://paste.debian.net/hidden/06f37279/>
> Any help will be appreciated.
>
> [1]
http://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/doc/pkgsrc.html>
>
Solved: The offender was the slash after /usr/pkg/man:
MANDB_MAP /usr/pkg/man/ /var/cache/man/pkg
Removing it and running mandb as root sorted the issue.
--
Ottavio Caruso