Re: Bug#993161: pam: some remaining changes for DPKG_ROOT
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Hi technical comittee members,
On Thu, Aug 18, 2022 at 03:44:54PM +0200, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> Within three weeks I want Steve to reply to this bug in a way that
> addresses Sam's needs or Sam to agree with moving forward without
> Steve's review. Failing that, I will ask the CTTE to override the pam
> maintainers on this patch.
I hope that it does not surprise you. I am formally asking the CTTE to
override the pam maintainers and requiring pam to support DPKG_ROOT.
DPKG_ROOT is a feature that allows installing packages into a chroot
without using the chroot syscall. The major benefit of doing so is
creating foreign chroots without requiring qemu for emulating maintainer
scripts. To work in such a setting, relevant maintainer scripts need to
be modified to operate on a chroot from outside. The location of the
chroot is communicated by dpkg using the DPKG_ROOT environment variable.
This feature is relevant to early architecture bootstrap where qemu is
not reliably available. As such the package set covered initially is
essential (thus covering pam) and shall be extended to build-essential.
Patches have been sent to all relevant essential packages and have been
applied by most. pam already carries partial support for DPKG_ROOT due
to Sam Hartman applying an earlier patch. Thank you. Unfortunately, we
later noticed that it was incomplete when we extended our QA and sent a
followup patch. This second patch is being pending in pam for about a
year. During that year, Sam repeatedly expressed discomfort with how we
approached the problem. In the end, Sam requested Steve to comment on
the matter. However, Steve has not participated at all. As such, the
patch is not being applied and eternally waiting for Steve (no pun
intended). We believe that we addressed all concerns (e.g. quality
assurance, limitation of scope, public discussion at DC22, etc.) raised
by Sam. Yet progress repeatedly stalled on this matter. Please read the
bug log for details. I've come to the conclusion that I will be unable
to resolve this. Therefore, I ask the CTTE to override the pam
maintainers:
* pam should support DPKG_ROOT and accept reasonable changes to that
end.
* In particular, the patch in bug #993161 is considered a reasonable
change with bearable maintenance cost and thus should be included
in pam.
* pam maintainers are in no way required to support DPKG_ROOT beyond
accepting reasonable patches and communicating in a timely manner.
Keeping DPKG_ROOT in a working state is the sole responsibility of
its proponents.
Since I am requesting a maintainer override, a super majority is
required.
Helmut
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