hi serafi, On Fri, May 29, 2026 at 10:50:10PM +0200, Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas wrote: > devref guidance, section 6.9.4. "Specific types of packages" has some recently > added guidance but is agnostic as to whether postinst should fail:
if the postinst of a package fails, this is usually considered an RC bug,
usually
detect by piuparts.d.o.
> my reading of the bug log is that the guidance needs to be nuanced. here's an
> attempt to reconcile the various views in the discussion:
>
> Package maintainers are expected to apply judgment with regards to which
> postinst behavior is more appropriate to any given package. Here is some
> generic guidance:
>
> 1. a service failing to start upon a fresh install should, in general,
> fail postinst, if
> 1.1 the service configuration is straightforward and can be reasonably
> expected to work as-is in typical Debian setups
> 1.2 the service has no external dependencies (e.g. a database which
> may be not configured yet, or unreachable at the time of the
> install)
>
> 2. a service failing to restart upon an upgrade should, in general, fail
> postinst if
> 2.1 postinst can verify with high confidence that the service was
> running prior to the restart (which may not always be feasible)
> 2.2 the service has no external dependencies or postinst can verify
> that they are functional
> 2.3 the service configuration has not changed in backwards
> incompatible ways between the old and new package versions
>
> fwiw I wonder whether this would be of much use. "typical Debian setups" is
> ambiguous. verifying whether a remote service is unreachable is not always
> straightforward. "backwards incompatible" is not always black and white.
I think this is still useful, despite its not all black and white, maybe
especially because its not black and white.
--
cheers,
Holger
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