Bug#390823: apache2-common cannot be purged.
On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 11:09:06AM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> it should have been made an empty package, without maintainer scripts,
> so that it could be purged, as it's superseeded with apache2.2-common.
Totally not an option. The entire justification for renaming apache2-common
to apache2.2-common is to force the upgrade or removal of apache2 module
packages which depend on apache2-common and are built for a previous ABI. If
apache2-common continued to exist and be installable, it would need to
conflict with all the old versions of the apache2 modules, and it should
then be a real package again instead of a dummy package, reverting the
rename to apache2.2-common.
But I don't think that's actually a good idea; large numbers of versioned
conflicts are bad for apt, and it's hard to get such versioned conflicts
right when a simple rebuild (binNMU) of a package invalidates the version
assumptions in either direction.
> [madcoder mad] LC_ALL=C sudo dpkg --purge apache2-common
> (Reading database ... 142646 files and directories currently installed.)
> Removing apache2-common ...
> Purging configuration files for apache2-common ...
> find: /etc/apache2: Permission denied
> update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/apache2 exists during rc.d purge (use -f to
> force)
> dpkg: error processing apache2-common (--purge):
> subprocess post-removal script returned error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> apache2-common
As for purging apache2-common, the obvious problem is that purging
apache2-common is going to remove config files that are now shared with
apache2.2-common, and that's a Bad Thing. It is not, however, unique; I
have seen other upgrade scenarios before where config files changed owners,
no dummy package was possible (because the package name change is
deliberate, representing an API/ABI change, just like this one), and purging
therefore would have a detrimental effect on the system. I don't think such
bugs should be treated as RC, irritating though they are, because it's not
really common practice for users to purge removed packages after upgrade
anyway.
So it's my recommendation to downgrade and "wontfix" this bug, since there's
no way to fix apache2-common's postrm script after the fact without
introducing a dummy package that re-breaks our dependency logic. If people
feel strongly about purging apache2-common, they can always rm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/apache2-common.postrm by hand, which is also irritating
but not that rare in the history of Debian either. :-P
Cheers,
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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