Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? The one I'm involved with is base-passwd; but it only doesn't use debconf because I've been putting off dealing with figuring out how to convert it over (since it ideally ought to go along with asking slightly more fine-grained questions about changes, and since most of the logic is in a C program). Seeing as I'm a debconf co-maintainer, this is really just me being slack rather than anything that should hold up policy, though! -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@debian.org] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Fri, 2009-03-20 at 12:27 +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Seconded. Cheers, Julien -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 16:44 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Andrew McMillan and...@morphoss.com writes: Here's an updated patch to apply the following wording: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Seconded. That seems to be accepted by everyone, so I've pushed it to policy now. I hope that's the right thing... Please tell me if I've done something the wrong way, or whatever. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Courage is your greatest present need. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Andrew McMillan and...@morphoss.com writes: That seems to be accepted by everyone, so I've pushed it to policy now. I hope that's the right thing... Please tell me if I've done something the wrong way, or whatever. The Policy change is good. When adding it to the mainline, please also add an item to upgrading-checklist.html and debian/changelog and then tag the bug as pending. http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Policy (near the bottom) hopefully helps here. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Sat, 2009-03-21 at 10:27 +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: That seems to be accepted by everyone, so I've pushed it to policy now. I hope that's the right thing... Please tell me if I've done something the wrong way, or whatever. It looks like you've modified the 3.8.1.0 changelog entry instead of 3.8.2 :) Cheers, Julien -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Fri, 2009-03-20 at 23:43 +0100, Julien Cristau wrote: On Sat, 2009-03-21 at 10:27 +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: That seems to be accepted by everyone, so I've pushed it to policy now. I hope that's the right thing... Please tell me if I've done something the wrong way, or whatever. It looks like you've modified the 3.8.1.0 changelog entry instead of 3.8.2 :) Gah! Sorry - fixed now. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Open Source: the difference between trust and antitrust -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? dpkg... sean signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009, Russ Allbery wrote: Manoj Srivastava sriva...@acm.org writes: Also, there is the funny case of config scripts; these are run even before preinst, and before any pre-dependencies are installed. And yet, these scripts are often used to prompt using debconf; they must be no-ops if debconf is not yet installed (they get re-run later, I think). Yeah, they're run via debconf's integration with the rest of the packaging system as I understand it, and are automatically run at postinst time before the postinst if they weren't run previously. They are not executed (before the install starts) if debconf is not installed. Hence I'm not sure if it's important to mention that they should be no-ops if debconf is not installed. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Contribuez à Debian et gagnez un cahier de l'admin Debian Lenny : http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2009/03/02/contribuer-a-debian-gagner-un-livre/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, sean finney wrote: On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? dpkg... Not anymore, no. There's no prompting in any of the dpkg's maintainer scripts. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Contribuez à Debian et gagnez un cahier de l'admin Debian Lenny : http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2009/03/02/contribuer-a-debian-gagner-un-livre/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
hi raphael, On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 08:10:21AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote: On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, sean finney wrote: On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? dpkg... Not anymore, no. There's no prompting in any of the dpkg's maintainer scripts. dpkg still prompts for input on conffile changes. i suppose if one were to nitpick it's not in a maintainer script per se, but it is part of the install/upgrade process and is problematic in the same way for noninteractive/gui installs as what policy is trying to solve in 3.9.1. thus i'd say it's rather an unintentional omission of policy than something that could be overlooked. sean signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, sean finney wrote: hi raphael, On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 08:10:21AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote: On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, sean finney wrote: On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? dpkg... Not anymore, no. There's no prompting in any of the dpkg's maintainer scripts. dpkg still prompts for input on conffile changes. Oh, right. I agree that we should aim to fix this as well but it's not especially relevant in this -policy discussion. I hope Guillem will work out something based on your patches in the squeeze timeframe. That said, while it can improve the user-interface in the interactive part, none of the solutions up to now include code to pre-answer all the configuration files questions. But it should be doable in most cases as the conffiles should not change between the start of the apt run and the postinst. Exactly like we extract config files, we could extract the conffiles and pre-ask all the relevant questions. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Contribuez à Debian et gagnez un cahier de l'admin Debian Lenny : http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2009/03/02/contribuer-a-debian-gagner-un-livre/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 20:26 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Management Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such interface is available when they are executed. Should we require that non-essential packages depend on debconf if they're going to do prompting? That wording implies to me that any package could check whether it was already installed (without a dependency) and fall back on non-debconf prompting, but I think that should only be permissible for essential packages. It seems to me that to mandate it that tightly is unnecessary. Surely it will be simpler for a maintainer who has added support for Debconf to just depend on it. Even if the maintainer does provide a workaround for an inessential package I can't see that it will matter to me: the important element is that they support the debconf interface, not to restrict what they might do in addition to that. The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? If a developer wants to prompt in their preinst (extremely rare, I believe, and explicitly recommended against in policy) then they certainly should either (a) pre-depend on debconf, or (b) provide a work-around solution for the case where debconf is not installed on the target system. The decision to pre-depend on debconf would seem like a no-brainer to the maintainer, I suspect. Since almost all packages *will* have situations where they are called when debconf is available they will (according to the wording above) all be required to use debconf. The fallback would only be chosen at execution time. Effectively I'm proposing that all packages needing user input must support debconf (or equivalent) - but also to recognise that some of them might be required to (install|configure|remove|...) with user input in it's absence and not to restrict them from Doing The Right Thing in that circumstance. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN You will gain money by a fattening action. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Hi, On Donnerstag, 19. März 2009, Russ Allbery wrote: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such interface is available when they are executed. Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Exempted from using such a programm are required/essential packages if no such interface is available when they are executed. Should we require that non-essential packages depend on debconf if they're going to do prompting? That wording implies to me that any package could check whether it was already installed (without a dependency) and fall back on non-debconf prompting, but I think that should only be permissible for essential packages. See the proposal above. The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? As we require it for any prompting, this includes preinst, and as stuff used in preinst needs to be a Pre-Depends, I think this is clear. regards, Holger P.S. Andrew, thanks! signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Holger Levsen hol...@layer-acht.org writes: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Exempted from using such a programm are required/essential packages if no such interface is available when they are executed. I think required is too weak; I think we want to say only essential. However, that does open up the problem of libc6. How about: Packages that are essential or that are dependencies of essential packages may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. I like this approach better; I'd rather require all non-essential packages to use debconf, including depending on it and failing if it doesn't work for some reason. It just removes some ambiguity, I think. Falling back to some other prompting method is just going to change the failure mode for non-interactive installs, and while essential packages have to deal with this, other packages really shouldn't. I may be missing some subtlety, though. The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? As we require it for any prompting, this includes preinst, and as stuff used in preinst needs to be a Pre-Depends, I think this is clear. Agreed. P.S. Andrew, thanks! Yes, thank you! -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:55 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Packages that are essential or that are dependencies of essential packages may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Since we're essentially saying that all packages must support debconf, why bother restricting the set of packages which are allowed to provide a fallback? From a maintainer's POV surely they will only be working to provide a fallback if they desire their package to be installable when debconf is not available. I don't think we should second-guess their reasons for doing so. Our motivation here should be simply to ensure that all packages support debconf (or a future replacement), not to over-control what they can do in addition to that. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 09:13:19AM +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:55 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Packages that are essential or that are dependencies of essential packages may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Since we're essentially saying that all packages must support debconf, why bother restricting the set of packages which are allowed to provide a fallback? Because the fallback is a worst case scenario, because testing for files on the filesystem is a poor proxy for determining whether the interface is in a usable state, and because adding the fallback code means duplicating logic in your maintainer script and making it way more complex than it needs to be. The fallback should only be permitted in Essential packages where it has to be there in order to avoid unbreakable loops; in all other cases, maintainers should properly declare their need for debconf and avoid making their maintainer scripts more clever and less robust. This also ensures that (assuming the maintainer is following policy) uses of debconf in preinsts are publically vetted by debian-devel before hitting the archive. From a maintainer's POV surely they will only be working to provide a fallback if they desire their package to be installable when debconf is not available. I don't think we should second-guess their reasons for doing so. On the contrary, the maintainer is already second-guessing the package system and the normal rules governing maintainer scripts at that point. While there may be cases we haven't thought of where a fallback is necessary, I think we should be explicitly whitelisting these as they are identified instead of leaving it to maintainers' individual judgement. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Andrew McMillan and...@morphoss.com writes: On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:55 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Packages that are essential or that are dependencies of essential packages may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Since we're essentially saying that all packages must support debconf, why bother restricting the set of packages which are allowed to provide a fallback? I want to be sure that people aren't confused into thinking they don't need a dependency on debconf. I suppose in practice it isn't going to really matter, since debconf is quasi-essential already, so I guess I can see your point and I'm being too particular about this. From a maintainer's POV surely they will only be working to provide a fallback if they desire their package to be installable when debconf is not available. I don't think we should second-guess their reasons for doing so. Well... I would a little bit just as an individual DD since I don't think this is an error case that packages should really be handling except in exceptional circumstances. If debconf doesn't work, I think the right thing to do for nearly all packages is to bail and leave the package unconfigured until debconf is fixed. But you're probably right that we don't need to say that in Policy. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Andrew McMillan and...@morphoss.com writes: Here's an updated patch to apply the following wording: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Seconded. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 13:59 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 09:13:19AM +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:55 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Packages that are essential or that are dependencies of essential packages may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Since we're essentially saying that all packages must support debconf, why bother restricting the set of packages which are allowed to provide a fallback? Because the fallback is a worst case scenario, because testing for files on the filesystem is a poor proxy for determining whether the interface is in a usable state, and because adding the fallback code means duplicating logic in your maintainer script and making it way more complex than it needs to be. The fallback should only be permitted in Essential packages where it has to be there in order to avoid unbreakable loops; in all other cases, maintainers should properly declare their need for debconf and avoid making their maintainer scripts more clever and less robust. This also ensures that (assuming the maintainer is following policy) uses of debconf in preinsts are publically vetted by debian-devel before hitting the archive. OK, those are excellent reasons. Here's an updated patch to apply the following wording: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method if no such interface is available when they are executed. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Flexibility is overrated. Constraints are liberating. diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml index df586d1..8f02c12 100644 --- a/policy.sgml +++ b/policy.sgml @@ -1218,17 +1218,16 @@ headingPrompting in maintainer scripts/heading p Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if - necessary. Prompting should be done by communicating + necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as prgndebconf/prgn, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management - Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the user by - other means, such as by handfootnote -From the Jargon file: by hand 2. By extension, -writing code which does something in an explicit or -low-level way for which a presupplied library -(emdebconf, in this instance/em) routine ought -to have been available. -/footnote, is now deprecated. + Specification, version 2 or higher. + /p + + p + Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of + essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method + if no such interface is available when they are executed. /p p
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Freitag, 20. März 2009, Russ Allbery wrote: Here's an updated patch to apply the following wording: Seconded. me too. (not quoted as this aint a GR. :-) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Hi, sadly this didden happen in 2003-2009, but I'd like this to become a reality for our next release sometime in 2010 or hopefully not 2011 ;-) Any takers? (To propose this as a release goal bringing this into policy.) Sadly I'm too busy for this, but I thought I'd at least remark it. regards, Holger signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Holger Levsen hol...@layer-acht.org writes: sadly this didden happen in 2003-2009, but I'd like this to become a reality for our next release sometime in 2010 or hopefully not 2011 ;-) Any takers? (To propose this as a release goal bringing this into policy.) This was one of the things that I was hoping to get into the next release of Policy, so I'm definitely in favor. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Bill Allombert bill.allomb...@math.u-bordeaux1.fr writes: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? I'm not sure how many of these were false positives, but I'm fairly sure that at least some of them are real: http://lintian.debian.org/tags/read-in-maintainer-script.html Should we draft an exception for the few situation where debconf is unavailable ? (e.g. dpkg and glibc before debconf is installed) Yes. I think there was some sort of essential package exception discussed earlier in the bug (although even essential packages should try debconf first and fall back if it's not available, I think). -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Andrew McMillan and...@morphoss.com writes: The current relevant text is: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting should be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the user by other means, such as by hand[9], is now deprecated. I think we should change that fairly simply to something like: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such interface is available when they are executed. This: (a) changes the 'should' to a 'must'; (b) gives an out for those situations where debconf is not installed; (c) narrowly focuses that 'out' only to apply during execution (d) seems to me to be a simpler and more elegant approach than other wording proposals against this bug. Should we require that non-essential packages depend on debconf if they're going to do prompting? That wording implies to me that any package could check whether it was already installed (without a dependency) and fall back on non-debconf prompting, but I think that should only be permissible for essential packages. The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 14:42 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: I'm not sure how many of these were false positives, but I'm fairly sure that at least some of them are real: http://lintian.debian.org/tags/read-in-maintainer-script.html Not all that many, and some will be false positives. I think we should go for it... Yes. I think there was some sort of essential package exception discussed earlier in the bug (although even essential packages should try debconf first and fall back if it's not available, I think). I'd be very happy to see a policy change for this, so long as it allowed that packages may fall back if debconf (or other alternative) is not available. The current relevant text is: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting should be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the user by other means, such as by hand[9], is now deprecated. I think we should change that fairly simply to something like: Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as debconf, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such interface is available when they are executed. This: (a) changes the 'should' to a 'must'; (b) gives an out for those situations where debconf is not installed; (c) narrowly focuses that 'out' only to apply during execution (d) seems to me to be a simpler and more elegant approach than other wording proposals against this bug. I've attached a patch to that effect. Cheers, Andrew. andrew (AT) morphoss (DOT) com+64(272)DEBIAN Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml index df586d1..342b6c4 100644 --- a/policy.sgml +++ b/policy.sgml @@ -1218,17 +1218,11 @@ headingPrompting in maintainer scripts/heading p Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if - necessary. Prompting should be done by communicating + necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating through a program, such as prgndebconf/prgn, which conforms to the Debian Configuration Management - Specification, version 2 or higher. Prompting the user by - other means, such as by handfootnote -From the Jargon file: by hand 2. By extension, -writing code which does something in an explicit or -low-level way for which a presupplied library -(emdebconf, in this instance/em) routine ought -to have been available. -/footnote, is now deprecated. + Specification, version 2 or higher, unless no such + interface is available when they are executed. /p p
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:29:35PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 01:46:03PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Holger Levsen hol...@layer-acht.org writes: sadly this didden happen in 2003-2009, but I'd like this to become a reality for our next release sometime in 2010 or hopefully not 2011 ;-) Any takers? (To propose this as a release goal bringing this into policy.) This was one of the things that I was hoping to get into the next release of Policy, so I'm definitely in favor. Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? Should we draft an exception for the few situation where debconf is unavailable ? (e.g. dpkg and glibc before debconf is installed) libc6.preinst does have a fallback in the case that debconf is unavailable during an upgrade. Policy should not forbid that usage in the case of essential packages that need to prompt. (libpam-modules also prompts in preinst, but manages to avoid the need for a fallback and simply Pre-Depends on debconf.) -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 08:26:54PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? I think we should be requiring it. Is there some reason we wouldn't? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 08:26:54PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? I think we should be requiring it. Is there some reason we wouldn't? I can't think of any. It's always a big deal to require Pre-Depends, but in this case, I think it's the right thing to do. I'd like to explicitly mention that in the wording (with a note that the Pre-Depends needs to be discussed in debian-devel), though, since it's always worth making people stop and think about Pre-Depends. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
Manoj Srivastava sriva...@acm.org writes: Also, there is the funny case of config scripts; these are run even before preinst, and before any pre-dependencies are installed. And yet, these scripts are often used to prompt using debconf; they must be no-ops if debconf is not yet installed (they get re-run later, I think). Yeah, they're run via debconf's integration with the rest of the packaging system as I understand it, and are automatically run at postinst time before the postinst if they weren't run previously. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18 2009, Bill Allombert wrote: Is there actually packages that does not use debconf ? ucf has code to fall back to using prompting to the console if debconf is not available. Of course, this fails if the installation is being run from a GUI, with the real tty buried. I am not sure some of my other packages also have this fall back code or not ... manoj -- Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. Manoj Srivastava sriva...@acm.org http://www.golden-gryphon.com/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#206684: mandatory use of debconf for user prompting a release goal for squeeze
On Wed, Mar 18 2009, Russ Allbery wrote: The only other thing that I'm not sure about is what to do about preinst scripts. Are we requiring debconf for preinst prompting (and hence requiring a Pre-Depends) for non-essential packages? Why should debconf be treated any differently than any other program being used in the pre-inst? I think if a package uses debconf in the preinst, it pre-depends on debconf. Also, there is the funny case of config scripts; these are run even before preinst, and before any pre-dependencies are installed. And yet, these scripts are often used to prompt using debconf; they must be no-ops if debconf is not yet installed (they get re-run later, I think). manoj -- The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken. Manoj Srivastava sriva...@acm.org http://www.golden-gryphon.com/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
