On Tue, 1 Oct 2002 09:25, Matthias Urlichs wrote: > > I have a perl postinst script that "gets stuck" when running certain > > external commands. For example, the line > > > > `/etc/init.d/apache restart >/dev/null 2>&1 3>&1 4>&1 5>&1`; > > > > will freeze the postinst script so that it must be killed. The problem > > has something to do with using the debconf module, > > More specifically, it has something to do with using backticks to start an > external command, and open file descriptors. You don't KNOW which > descriptor DebConf uses.
This is a good reason for not using debconf. The interface between a program and libraries it uses should be defined, and it should be designed in a way to minimise harm to other programs. > You should (a) issue the STOP command (see "man 7 debconf-devel"), and > (b) use fork+execve to restart apache instead of backticks. Which of course would not work well if you have to run a script to get information needed for the next debconf question... -- http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/ My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page