Bug#487691: user-setup: endless loop after entering empty root passwords

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Wednesday 06 August 2008, Jérémy Bobbio wrote:
> Hence, three questions are asked in one row, namely
> "user-setup/password-empty", "passwd/shadow", "passwd/root-login".
>
> The user is thus first showed the error message.  Then, after pressing
> "Continue", "passwd/shadow" or "passwd/root-login" is displayed
> (depending on the priority).  When pressing "Go back", the previous
> question is displayed, which actually is the error message (again).

Hmm, right. So the base cause of the issue is that we are still within 
*the same db_go*. That's what I missed when reading your previous mail.
I was assuming that <go back> would break out of the db_go but I see now 
that was a wrong assumption.

> So, I thought of two different ways to fix this:
>  * Change user-setup-ask to show the error messages with their own
>    db_go, which could be inserted right below the relevant db_input.

But that would mean a usability regression for the GTK frontend (IMO).

>  * Make the text and newt cdebconf frontends skip questions with the
>    "error" type when rewinding through the question list after "Go
>    back" has been preseed.

If you add to that "within a single db_go" then that does indeed make 
sense. A different implementation (if possible) could be to remove 
an "error" question from the queue right after it has been displayed. 
That would mean no special handling is needed when rewinding.

> In the hope to made myself clear enough,

Yes, thanks.