On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 07:43:46PM +0300, Anton Zinoviev wrote: > First the problem in few words. The package console-setup needs an > access to a directory similar to /var very early during the boot process > - when /var is not yet mounted. Currently it creates files in the > directory /etc/console-setup. As a result when the package is purged it > is impossible to tell which files in /etc/console-setup are > automatically generated (so they have to be removed) and which are put > there by the admin (so we are not permitted to remove them). I think your premise here is false. The /etc/console-setup directory is owned by the console-setup package; there are certain predictable filenames that will have been created by the package; and any files in this directory are configuration files for console-setup, whether created by the admin manually or created by the package. So it's perfectly permissible under policy for the package to remove these files on purge. > One possible solution is to generate the files in a directory named > /etc/console-setup/.cache and to put a file /etc/console-setup/.cache/README > explaining the purpose of this directory and warning the admin that the > package is free to remove or overwrite at any time any files in this > directory. > Please don't complain that this is a policy violation. :) I think at the > moment there is no solution of the problem without policy violation and > the packages kbd, console-tools and console-setup have been happily > doing policy violations regarding /etc since the very first version of > Debian. My complaint is that this is excessively ugly. For persistent variable data that needs to be available during early boot, even when this is binary data that the user won't edit, /etc is the normal place to keep it - it's the creation of a a .cache subdirectory that I object to. > The second solution I propose is to generate the files in a directory > /boot/console-setup. After all the whole need of such directory arises > due to the specifics of the boot process. > Personally, I think I prefer /boot to /etc. Not useful for reasons already discussed. > > Some additional info: most of the time the package requires only > read-only access to this directory. Write-access is required only in > the following occasions: > 1. when the admin is dpkg-reconfiguring the package > 2. during the first reboot (but not too early in the boot process) if > the admin has edited the configuration files of console-setup by hand > and he has not used the command "setupcon --save" > 3. when the admin uses the command "setupcon --save" Yep, which makes this entirely consistent with storage on the rootfs, including when the rootfs is read-only by default, and /etc the right place to put the data. 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. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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