Problem installing podman from source: sudo make install fails

[flowejam]

Issue Description

I was following the instructions here, as per the podman contributors guide. It causes a bit of unnecessary friction for newcomers that would be worth fixing I think. A similar issue was encountered previously: #19755 . In my case, the build worked, but installing with this command failed:
sudo make install PREFIX=/usr

I'm willing to submit a PR for this issue but was unsure of whether editing the docs or the Makefile would be preferred.

Steps to reproduce the issue

Steps to reproduce the issue

1. Run sudo go env GOOS without having /usr/local/go/bin added to secure_path

Describe the results you received

The issue in the Makefile is with these two lines:

GO ?= go                                                                        
NATIVE_GOOS := $(shell env -u GOOS $(GO) env GOOS)

so this error is encountered:
Required variable NATIVE_GOOS value is undefined, whitespace, or empty. Stop.`

Describe the results you expected

A successful installation from source after following the instructions here and running sudo make install PREFIX=/usr.

podman info output

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
Client:       Podman Engine
Version:      5.4.0-dev
API Version:  5.4.0-dev
Go Version:   go1.23.4
Git Commit:   d3cd5098f0abb54279ce4abe594d309e2bc027b0

Podman in a container

No

Privileged Or Rootless

None

Upstream Latest Release

Yes

Additional environment details

virt-manager

[g4njawizard]

Can confirm make install fails.

sudo make install PREFIX=/usr
...
...
mkdir -p docs/build/man
( echo "% podman-rootless 7"; echo; sed -e '/logo.*\.png/d' <rootless.md ) >docs/source/markdown/podman-rootless.7.md.tmp.$ && \
	mv docs/source/markdown/podman-rootless.7.md.tmp.$ docs/source/markdown/podman-rootless.7.md
( echo "% podman-troubleshooting 7"; echo; sed -e '/logo.*\.png/d' <troubleshooting.md ) >docs/source/markdown/podman-troubleshooting.7.md.tmp.$ && \
	mv docs/source/markdown/podman-troubleshooting.7.md.tmp.$ docs/source/markdown/podman-troubleshooting.7.md
/usr/bin/bash: line 1: go: command not found
/usr/bin/bash: line 1: go: command not found
env: ‘go’: No such file or directory
env: ‘go’: No such file or directory
Makefile:191: *** Required variable NATIVE_GOOS value is undefined, whitespace, or empty.  Stop.

[rhatdan]

Looks like you don't have golang installed?

[flowejam]

Looks like you don't have golang installed?

Hi Daniel,

I have v1.23.4 installed:

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
Client:       Podman Engine
Version:      5.4.0-dev
API Version:  5.4.0-dev
**Go Version:   go1.23.4**
Git Commit:   d3cd5098f0abb54279ce4abe594d309e2bc027b0

This issue doesn't prevent me from building podman - sudo make install fails, though. I followed the instructions on go.dev for linux when installing go (https://go.dev/doc/install).

Running sudo go env GOOS fails with sudo: go: command not found. My workaround was just to replace this line in the Makefile:
GO ?= go
with this:
GO ?=/usr/local/go/bin/go

Or perhaps the docs could be changed to include something like this command:

sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin make install PREFIX=/usr

[rhatdan]

Please open a PR to change the docs.