Your message dated Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:26:59 -0500
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Re: Bug#561319: e2fslibs: needs a root password at boot !
Please remove
has caused the Debian Bug report #561319,
regarding e2fslibs: needs a root password at boot ! Please remove
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
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--
561319: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=561319
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: e2fslibs
Version: 1.41.9-1
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system
Dear Sir,
I reported an issue to the linux kernel for the file :
/etc/default/rcS
But as reply they seems that this file is not supported by the developers of
the kernel and the persons responsible are the fsck developers.
So that's why you receive. Nobody owns this file, but well, ok. Everyone
contributes to linux, and we like linux.
So the issue.
My childrens do not the root password of the machine (luckily otherwise, would
be interesting story) and the file:
/etc/default/rcS
is not correct, and shall be as the previous distro of LINUX Stable.
Please instead of :
#
# /etc/default/rcS
#
# Default settings for the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/
#
# For information about these variables see the rcS(5) manual page.
#
# This file belongs to the "initscripts" package.
TMPTIME=0
SULOGIN=no
DELAYLOGIN=no
UTC=yes
VERBOSE=no
FSCKFIX=yes
RAMRUN=no
RAMLOCK=no
The content of the file, for Debian Stable, shall / is to be / must be:
#
# /etc/default/rcS
#
# Default settings for the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/
#
# For information about these variables see the rcS(5) manual page.
#
# This file belongs to the "initscripts" package.
TMPTIME=0
SULOGIN=no
DELAYLOGIN=no
UTC=yes
VERBOSE=no
FSCKFIX=no
RAMRUN=no
RAMLOCK=no
Thank you, Linux is made for everyone, not only for roots.
Greetings / Kind regards
Y.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-2-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages e2fslibs depends on:
ii libc6 2.10.2-2 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
e2fslibs recommends no packages.
e2fslibs suggests no packages.
-- no debconf information
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 05:18:17AM +0100, yellowprotoss wrote:
> Package: e2fslibs
> Version: 1.41.9-1
> Severity: critical
> Justification: breaks the whole system
>
> Dear Sir,
>
> I reported an issue to the linux kernel for the file :
> /etc/default/rcS
>
> But as reply they seems that this file is not supported by the
> developers of the kernel and the persons responsible are the fsck
> developers. So that's why you receive. Nobody owns this file, but
> well, ok. Everyone contributes to linux, and we like linux.
I had a lot of trouble understanding what you were talking about,
until I did some Google searching, and found your bug report here:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=553099
Interpolating from your complaint, it sounds like had a problem where
your file system was corrupted, and the file system checker wasn't
able to fix it automatically. As a result it requested that the
system administrator login with root permissions, and fix the file
system manually.
You sent a bug report, #553099, tagged as being a kernel problem. A
debian developer retagged it as an initscripts issue, since it
obviously wasn't a kernel problem, and another developer pointed out
that you could easily make it do what you want by changing the
configuration parameter FSCKFIX in /etc/default/rcS to "yes", and then
closed the bug.
You then opened this bug, and assigned it against the e2fslibs package.
> So the issue.
> My childrens do not the root password of the machine (luckily otherwise,
> would be interesting story) and the file:
> /etc/default/rcS
> is not correct, and shall be as the previous distro of LINUX Stable.
OK, so first of all, the configuration file /etc/default/rcS belongs
to the initscripts package, and you can easily edit the file yourself
and change FSCKFIX to be yes. Opening a bug against e2fslibs to
change this default makes no sense, as that file is owned by the
initscripts package.
HOWEVER, changing this to be the default is a Very Bad Idea, and let
me tell you why. In your earlier bug report, you claimed this is a
bad idea for headless servers; in this bug report, you complained that
your children don't have the root password. The problem is that
normal file system damage is automatically repaired. However, if the
file system is significantly corrupted, a system administrator does
need to examine the system to see what has gone wrong. Bringing up
the system in a "don't worry, be happy!" mode is often the wrong thing
to do.
In the case of your children's computer, suppose the file system
damage involved loss of the files that filter out pornography and
other content inappropriate for chidlren from being viewed in the web
browser? You might want to repair that kind of damage yourself,
instead of having FSCKFIX=yes just happily repair the damage by
deleting the files, and then letting the system come back up.
Or suppose the headless server contained was serving up critical
services; if some of the files were damaged, it's often better to have
the system stay down (and perhaps have standby servers take over),
than to have the system come up, answering requests, but doing so
incorrectly due to the damaged files.
The key here is that the file system checker can only make the file
system self-consistent. It can not guarantee that contents of the
files are correct. In many cases, the only way it can make the file
system consistent is by deleting the corrupted directories and/or
files. It is up to the administrator to know that, "gee, those files
are related to the web nanny program that keeps my children from
stumbling across nasty pages on the web; maybe I should reinstall or
reconfigure that package".
What can cause these sorts of file system corruption? Most typically
hardware failures, most often in the hard drive. This behaviour of
requiring a system administrator to handle certain types of file
system repair has been true for almost two decades, since the very
beginnings of Linux. Maybe you haven't seen it until now, but to say
that this is required to make the current version of Debian as stable
as previous versions of Linux is to very greatly misunderstand the
problem.
Best regards,
- Ted
--- End Message ---
