Bug#723966: installation-reports: /root directory deleted when re-installing

[Paul Hardy <unifoundry@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 12:57 AM, Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 06:52:26PM -0700, Paul Hardy wrote:
>> Would it be possible to copy /root someplace temporarily during
>> installation, for example to /home/root if /home is an available file
>> system or even a RAM-based temporary file system (which won't help
>> during a kernel panic)?  Then after /root is re-created, files could
>> get copied back.
>
> Sure, you can do copy that yourself.  You must not work as root, so
> /root does not contain anything useful.

If Debian users "must not work as root", then disable root login the
way Ubuntu does, but know that then you are going against the way Unix
has existed since its beginning.

>> Alternatively, if there are files in /root maybe a warning message
>> could be printed.
>
> The whole filesystem is not empty.  You asked it to create a new one.
> Of cause it will do what you ask.

I selected the option for the Debian installer to preserve files, not
to wipe out any file system or the root home directory.  That is the
bug--I specifically did not ask for a new filesystem.

Thanks,


Paul Hardy