Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
Netscape outgoing mail may have broken due to this. nathan -- | Nathan Siemers - Division of Applied Genomics - Bristol-Myers | | Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute - H23-05, PO Box 4000, | | Princeton, NJ 08543-4000 - (609) 252-6568 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]| -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Colin R. Telmer wrote: Santiago: Will further future upgrades of base-files again remove the link? I would think that would be a good thing as it will root out buggy packages. Actually, the package does not remove the symlink, it just does not include it (a subtle difference :-). This means you can create the symlink by hand and then it will be preserved (removing the symlink deliberately would be too strong...) If we are able to modify all our software to comply with the standards, the symlinks will go away in the next Debian stable release (i.e. base-files_2.0.0 will not include the symlinks, as now). Being mostly FSSTND-compliant is a release goal for Debian 2.0 (it was already a release goal for Debian 1.3, just that we didn't remove the symlinks in bo when bo was unstable, so we didn't find the bugs). If you report a bug on this, you may tag it as important by adding the following pseudoheader: Severity: important in the bug report. Thanks. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 iQCVAgUBNOGPjSqK7IlOjMLFAQGZFQP6A57JNFsXFYik1/1dPSHUQAQd2Riyo9DF mEDhlDuhqy06fTKeYPtQTz8GC4920m4/tuV9RMHT7FY6SFCHnN2YOfw04KizLjuI sy8mUeMEHQgEd1Coue3CwNUm1ne/nn+92GkGvEXXV5VJO49gQR7DfLgICNIThHNJ DbiXiAn4xIc= =cG23 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hello. This mail is intended for the user who is running the current Debian unstable distribution (a.k.a. hamm). I'm the Debian maintainer who removed the /usr/spool symlink and some other symlinks that were part of the `base-files' package... Not only the FHS but also the old FSSTND says that the mail spool is /var/spool/mail, so every program should look for mail there, not in /usr/spool/mail. Everything that the FSSTND and the FHS says about the symlink /usr/spool - /var/spool is that it may be present (but it is not mandatory). It also says Once a system no longer requires any one of the above symbolic links, the link may be removed, if desired. Well, our goal for Debian 2.0 is obviously to comply with the standards, so we *must* modify all our software to use /var/spool and not /usr/spool. But then: How will we know which programs do not use /var/spool yet? The answer is very simple: Just remove the symlinks and see which programs break. Of course, this has to be done in *unstable*, where every program may break. So if a program breaks because it uses /usr/spool, *that* is a bug. If you want to help us on this, you may report all those bugs through the Debian bug tracking system, see /usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt or http://www.de.debian.org/Bugs. [ Of course, if you want to help us even more, you may take a look at the bug database first to make sure that the bug is not already reported ]. As it is often said: I apologize for the inconvenience, etc. etc. Thanks. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 iQCVAgUBNODHCiqK7IlOjMLFAQEfDAQApFmgt81FUwk0e791lu7cTxVvb7NS0KwP PFGEK6noWEboVFIWFqNpmnQdTNDikwHi2YyQlF9Ak4WpbQy+tGzfeUc9/+cxfeTD Pli5Oe71dusZ2zQkhu0k9+mwq7wXFnFdEO2ZPUoaTUfcnijz4qCs6dz5sJaKyn3n WSbvLPuxZrg= =0KN/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Santiago Vila Doncel wrote: But then: How will we know which programs do not use /var/spool yet? The answer is very simple: Just remove the symlinks and see which programs break. Of course, this has to be done in *unstable*, where every program may break. So if a program breaks because it uses /usr/spool, *that* is a bug. how about this as a start: #!/bin/sh for i in /bin /sbin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/X11R6/bin [...etc...] ; do for j in $i/* ; do strings -a $j | grep -q /usr/spool echo $j uses /usr/spool done done btw, i agree with removing the /usr/spool symlink. programs that use /usr/spool have to be found and fixed. craig -- craig sanders -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Craig Sanders wrote: On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Santiago Vila Doncel wrote: But then: How will we know which programs do not use /var/spool yet? The answer is very simple: Just remove the symlinks and see which programs break. Of course, this has to be done in *unstable*, where every program may break. So if a program breaks because it uses /usr/spool, *that* is a bug. how about this as a start: #!/bin/sh for i in /bin /sbin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/X11R6/bin [...etc...] ; do for j in $i/* ; do strings -a $j | grep -q /usr/spool echo $j uses /usr/spool done done here's what a similar loop run on my /usr/bin reports: # cd /usr/bin # for i in * ; do strings -a $i | grep -q /usr/spool echo $i uses /usr/spool ; done Broken pipe epic4 uses /usr/spool mailserver uses /usr/spool Broken pipe ncftp uses /usr/spool nn uses /usr/spool nnbatch uses /usr/spool nncheck uses /usr/spool nngrep uses /usr/spool nnpost uses /usr/spool nntidy uses /usr/spool nnview uses /usr/spool Broken pipe pine uses /usr/spool strings: smath: Too many levels of symbolic links sortmail uses /usr/spool Broken pipe xemacs uses /usr/spool Broken pipe xemacs-20.2 uses /usr/spool the broken pipe messages are presumably from binaries with no strings in them. on my system, /usr/bin/smath is a symlink to /etc/alternatives/smath. /etc/alternatives/smath is a symlink to /usr/bin/smath. i suppose it's a good think i don't use smath for anything :-). smath is from staroffice. it's installed weirdly on my systems...i have it installed on kali.taz.net.au and have /usr/lib/StarOffice3.1 nfs mounted on my workstation siva.taz.net.au because kali has gobs of free disk space and i built siva with a way-too-small /usr partition a long time ago. it may be necessary for bug reports to be filed against the other packages - depends on whether they are written to only use /usr/spool or if the string is in there because they can use it as a second-choice alternative to /var/spool. craig -- craig sanders -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
Santiago Vila Doncel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hello. This mail is intended for the user who is running the current Debian unstable distribution (a.k.a. hamm). I'm the Debian maintainer who removed the /usr/spool symlink and some other symlinks that were part of the `base-files' package... Ahh, that's the package! I grepped /var/lib/dpkg/info/* for /usr/spool, but didn't find anything. I shoulda tried harder. Not only the FHS but also the old FSSTND says that the mail spool is /var/spool/mail, so every program should look for mail there, not in /usr/spool/mail. So if a program breaks because it uses /usr/spool, *that* is a bug. If you want to help us on this, you may report all those bugs through the Debian bug tracking system, see /usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt or http://www.de.debian.org/Bugs. [ Of course, if you want to help us even more, you may take a look at the bug database first to make sure that the bug is not already reported ]. As it is often said: I apologize for the inconvenience, etc. etc. Thanks. All this is cool, I just couldn't figure out which package removed the link, so I wasn't sure which package to file a bug against. Thanks! --Norris -- Norris Preyer (541) 962-3310 (office) Physics Program (541) 962-3873 (fax) Eastern Oregon University [EMAIL PROTECTED] La Grande, OR 97850http://physics.eou.edu/npreyer.html finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP key -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
On 10 Feb 1998, Norris Preyer wrote: All this is cool, I just couldn't figure out which package removed the link, so I wasn't sure which package to file a bug against. The package that removed the link is fine. It is the packages that try to use the link that bugs should be reported against. In other words, packages shouldn't use the link, but should refer directly to /var/spool. If you find a package that tries to use the link and fails (because the new base-files removed it), please file a bug report against that package (and then if you need to use the buggy package, just create the soft-link yourself). Santiago: Will further future upgrades of base-files again remove the link? I would think that would be a good thing as it will root out buggy packages. Cheers, Colin. -- Colin Telmer, Kingston, Ontario, Canada mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://terrapin.econ.queensu.ca -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Using hamm? READ THIS about /usr/spool and related links...
how about this as a start: #!/bin/sh for i in /bin /sbin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/X11R6/bin [...etc...] ; do for j in $i/* ; do strings -a $j | grep -q /usr/spool echo $j uses /usr/spool done done Running this script I got the following list: bash uses /usr/spool rbash uses /usr/spool sh uses /usr/spool mailserver uses /usr/spool strings: smath: Too many levels of symbolic links xemacs uses /usr/spool xemacs-20.2 uses /usr/spool xbiff uses /usr/spool Sasha. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
