Bug#984616: nis: prompting due to modified conffiles which were not modified by the user: /etc/default/nis
On Fri, Mar 05, 2021 at 09:57:27PM +0100, Andreas Beckmann wrote: during a test with piuparts I noticed your package failed the piuparts upgrade test because dpkg detected a conffile as being modified and then prompted the user for an action. As there is no user input, this fails. But this is not the real problem, the real problem is that this prompt shows up in the first place, as there was nobody modifying this conffile at all, the package has just been installed and upgraded... This is a violation of policy 10.7.3, see https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#behavior, which says "[These scripts handling conffiles] must not ask unnecessary questions (particularly during upgrades), and must otherwise be good citizens." This is a non sense, the 4 series is proposing a relevant change to the system, that is having all services off in that stupid file (the previous insane default was having the system in client+broadcast mode). The simple mechanism of conffiles can only undestand if the new default is different from the current file, not if the user maintained that on purpose or not. So a the question IS relevant. The whole wide changes are explained in the NEWS file and a sane admin will prefer to have all services stopped and act for the better. -- Francesco P. Lovergine
Bug#984616: nis: prompting due to modified conffiles which were not modified by the user: /etc/default/nis
Package: nis Version: 4.2 Severity: serious User: debian...@lists.debian.org Usertags: piuparts Hi, during a test with piuparts I noticed your package failed the piuparts upgrade test because dpkg detected a conffile as being modified and then prompted the user for an action. As there is no user input, this fails. But this is not the real problem, the real problem is that this prompt shows up in the first place, as there was nobody modifying this conffile at all, the package has just been installed and upgraded... This is a violation of policy 10.7.3, see https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#behavior, which says "[These scripts handling conffiles] must not ask unnecessary questions (particularly during upgrades), and must otherwise be good citizens." https://wiki.debian.org/DpkgConffileHandling should help with figuring out how to do this properly. In https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/08/msg00675.html and followups it has been agreed that these bugs are to be filed with severity serious. This was observed during a buster -> bullseye upgrade. >From the attached log (scroll to the bottom...): Setting up nis (4.2) ... Configuration file '/etc/default/nis' ==> File on system created by you or by a script. ==> File also in package provided by package maintainer. What would you like to do about it ? Your options are: Y or I : install the package maintainer's version N or O : keep your currently-installed version D : show the differences between the versions Z : start a shell to examine the situation The default action is to keep your current version. *** nis (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? dpkg: error processing package nis (--configure): end of file on stdin at conffile prompt Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-9) ... Errors were encountered while processing: nis cheers, Andreas nis_4.2.log.gz Description: application/gzip
