Re: Bug#766459: debootstrap: should not try to configure base-files before /etc/passwd has the usual users in a Debian system

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

reassign 766459 debootstrap
retitle 766459 debootstrap: should not try to configure base-files before /etc/passwd has the usual users in a Debian system
thanks

[ Retitled because the predependency on awk in the subject is quite old
  and most probably has nothing to do with this ].

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014, Holger Levsen wrote:

> chown: invalid user: 'root:root'

base-files is in his right to use the root user, because it is setup
in an essential package (base-passwd), as we are allowed to assume
that essential packages work all the time.

It is not base-files business (or any other essential package) to do
things differently "so that things work in debootstrap".

Instead, the work of debootstrap is precisely to guess the right order
in which packages should be configured so that everything work.

In other words, essential packages should not get in the business of
breaking dependency cycles, because that's debootstrap job.

This way, maintainer scripts in essential packages are kept "clean"
and all the hacks required for bootstrap are "accumulated" (so to speak)
in debootstrap and similar tools.

You will find a more complete explanation of this in the logs for
Bug#760568 where I'm asked no less than to depend on base-passwd,
which is essential! IMHO, this is definitely not the way to go.

> This happens since today, so I assume yesterdays base-files upload
> is at fault.

The only recent change in base-files that could potentially trigger an
error like this now is in the last three lines of base-files.postinst,
but again, what base-files does is allowed for any essential package.

Thanks.