Package: nn
Version: 6.6.5-2
Severity: important
[I have checked 6.7.2-1 from testing and all the following applies.]
[I have also looked back at 6.6.4-0.woody.1, where it also applied.]
The control files nn.{templates,config,postinst} seem a bit broken, in
several ways. Perhaps the bug severity should be serious?
Summary:
(1) Template name mismatch
(2) Obsolete (and deprecated) creation of /etc/news in nn.config
(3) Owner/group mismatch for /etc/news
(4) Postinst writes to /etc/servers when /etc/server seems intended
Details:
(1) Template name mismatch
File nn.templates defines "Template: nn/ask-server".
But the scripts nn.config and nn.postinst try to interact with the
differently-named template "nn/ask-newsserver".
The result of this mismatch is a bit unpredictable, because it depends
on the pre-existing data in /var/cache/debconf/{config,templates}.dat
If there is no pre-existing nn/ask-newsserver in its cache, debconf
may return $RET = "nn/ask-newsserver doesn't exist" and this is
written out by the postinst to /etc/news/servers (this actually
occurred during my upgrade to woody).
If there is a pre-existing (old) nn/ask-newsserver in the cache, debconf
uses it, completely ignoring the (new) nn/ask-server in the package.
(This occurs on my system now, under sarge, though I have not been able
to determine when nn/ask-newsserver entered the cache.)
For a quick fix, I suggest changing nn.templates so that the template
is called 'nn/ask-newsserver' consistently.
[In the longer term, it would be good to agree a shared template with
other news packages in debian. This is touched on in various policy
documents. Until this is done, I would expect preconfiguration on a
fresh install (with no existing /etc/news/server) to ask the news
server question for several packages but then use the answer only from
one; not good.]
(2) Obsolete (and deprecated) creation of /etc/news in nn.config
Since version June 2002 (6.6.4-0.woody.1) the directory /etc/news has
been part of the nn-dirs. See the changelog and bug #134002. Sure
enough, in nn_6.7.2-1_i386.deb-DATA, we see:
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 ./etc/news/
So I think the creation of /etc/news by script nn.config is obsolete.
Doing it in the maintainer scripts seems to go back essentially to
bug #49639 from November 1999, before it was one of the nn-dirs.
Surely you don't need to do that any more? By the time the dir is
needed - in the postinst - it will exist.
Creating the dir in the config script is not just redundant, it is
deprecated: "the config script should not need to modify the
filesystem at all" [debconf-devel(7), from package debconf-doc].
(3) Owner/group mismatch for /etc/news
The package is unclear about the desired owner/group of /etc/news.
In nn.config it says
install -d -m 755 -o news -g news /etc/news
but the nn-dir unpacked by the package (see above) was root/root.
If there is a good reason for departing from general policy (debian
policy, section 10.9) and having owner/group news/news , then the
.deb-DATA should change, so it unpacks the dir correctly. If you
are happy with root/root, the code in nn.config should say so -
except, as suggested at (2) above, this code should probably be deleted
anyway.
(4) Postinst writes to /etc/servers when /etc/server seems intended
File nn.config asks its template question
if [ ! -f /etc/news/server ]
But the postinst uses the answer to that template question like this:
# setting /etc/news/servers
db_get nn/ask-newsserver || true
echo $RET > /etc/news/servers
Notice the difference: 'server' and 'servers'.
I don't know the package well enough. Perhaps this is not a bug. But
it does look strange. Surely if /etc/news/server does not exist, that
is the file you want to create? [If this *is* a bug, it helps explain
why the other bugs didn't get noticed sooner.]
- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-2-686
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Versions of packages nn depends on:
ii debconf 1.4.30.13 Debian configuration management sy
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libncurses5 5.4-4 Shared libraries for terminal hand
-- debconf information:
nn/ask-server: news
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