On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 08:13:52AM +0100, Ansgar wrote: > Josh Triplett writes: > > diff --git a/policy/ch-files.rst b/policy/ch-files.rst > > index 48410be..1cdcb18 100644 > > --- a/policy/ch-files.rst > > +++ b/policy/ch-files.rst > > @@ -722,6 +722,15 @@ The name of the files and directories installed by > > binary packages > > outside the system PATH must be encoded in UTF-8 and should be > > restricted to ASCII when it is possible to do so. > > > > +.. _s-cache: > > + > > +Cache > > +----- > > + > > +Packages must not install files or directories into ``/var/cache``. The > > +system administrator may delete any or all files from this directory at > > +any time, or may choose to put it on an ephemeral filesystem. > > + > > If you allow directories to be removed at any time, it breaks non-root > programs using /var/cache: they cannot recreate them. The FHS only > allows removing files. > > Creating the directories in maintainer scripts instead of shipping them > in the package makes no difference: if you care about ephemeral > filesystems for /var/cache, you have to require something like tmpfiles > or CacheDirectory= in .service files to be used (depending on the > requirements of the package). > > So I think we should require such solutions to be used over just > forbidding to ship the directory as part of the package.
I don't think we should require any *specific* solution to be used, but if you'd like, I could certainly say something like "if the package expects to have a specific directory writable by non-root, it will need to arrange to create that directory as root before running; the package should not fail to run if that directory does not exist".
