Hi! On Tue, 2023-09-12 at 22:17:44 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> writes: > > Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> writes: > >> Maybe the right way to do this is just have two examples, one as the > >> default and another if you're using tmpfiles.d functionality added in a > >> specific version of systemd that's newer than the version shipped with > >> the stable version of Debian prior to the one you're targeting. > > > Here's an updated version with that change plus some other minor fixes. > > Er, right, helps to rebase first. Here's the actual patch.
> diff --git a/policy/ch-files.rst b/policy/ch-files.rst > index b34c183..fa3e5be 100644 > --- a/policy/ch-files.rst > +++ b/policy/ch-files.rst > @@ -722,6 +722,70 @@ 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-tmpfiles.d: > + > +Volatile and temporary files (``tmpfiles.d``) > +--------------------------------------------- > + > +Some packages require empty directories in ``/var`` or ``/etc``, or Not shipping these empty directories in the .deb seems like a regression or a disservice to me. Even for things that might get deleted because things like our policy or the FHS allows for it (say stuff under /var/cache), as «dpkg --verify» can be useful. Because of course, these in addition, can be defined via tmpfiles.d, so that they can possibly be recreated if needed (until dpkg provides its own interfaces to do that). > +symlinks or files with trivial content in ``/var``, to implement their > +functionality. Examples include directories under ``/var/cache`` that are > +writable by the package as cache areas, an initially-empty directory in > +``/etc`` intended for local overrides added by the local system > +administrator, or a file in ``/var`` that should default to a symlink > +elsewhere on the system but may be changed later. > + > +Rather than include these symlinks, files, or directories in the binary > +package or create them in package maintainer scripts, packages should use > +the ``tmpfiles.d`` mechanism to specify the files and directories that > +should be created. This allows associating these files and directories > +with specific packages (not currently possible when creating them in > +maintainer scripts), Well, this association would then only be indirect, instead of being able to get at them via say «dpkg-query --search» or «dpkg-query --listfiles». > and allows local administrators to delete the > +contents of directories such as ``/var/cache`` with the assurance that > +``tmpfiles.d`` can recreate the necessary file structure without > +reinstalling packages or re-running maintainer scripts. Thanks, Guillem
