Bug#1110525: syslinux-utils: installs /usr/lib/debug/.dwz/x86_64-linux-gnu/syslinux-utils.debug

[Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org>]

Hi,

On 8/7/25 10:33 PM, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Franck <franckr01@online.de> (2025-08-07):
>> Package: syslinux-utils
>> X-Debbugs-Cc: franckr01@online.de
>> Version: 3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-3.1
>> Severity: minor
>>
>> Dear Maintainer,
>>
>> Package syslinux-utils_6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-3.1_amd64.deb
>> installs /usr/lib/debug/.dwz/x86_64-linux-gnu/syslinux-utils.debug
>>
>> Is this intentional ?
>> FYI this triggers chkrootkit:   "/usr/lib/debug/.dwz [From Debian package: syslinux-utils]"
>>
>> Package syslinux-utils_6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-3+b1_amd64.deb
>> did not contain this path/file.
> 
> Adding pkern to the loop, who NMU'd this package.
> 
> It seems dwz things are usually in debug packages, with only a few
> exceptions in unstable:
>  - ghc
>  - mlton-tools
>  - syslinux-utils
> 
> (ghc also in Debian 12, might be needed/useful for that compiler.)
> 
> Since debian/rules ends with the following, it seems to be on purpose,
> at least at the time:
> 
>     override_dh_strip:
>             dh_strip --no-automatic-dbgsym
> 
> This can be traced back all the way to:
>   https://salsa.debian.org/images-team/syslinux/-/commit/27ffd5002a276293c03aa05fb153548d4b692e55

We could go and prune the directory post-build/not include it in the
package. But every upload to syslinux is somewhat risky IMO because we
do not have infrastructure in place right now to test the resulting
binary - and every build is happening with a new toolchain that can
introduce changes, as evidenced here. In any case the resulting debug
file is indeed not useful.

But I'm also not convinced that this is a useful finding from chkrootkit
in the first place.

Kind regards
Philipp Kern