Bug#3276: screen upgrade trashes running sessions...

[joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl (joost witteveen)]

> 
> package: screen
> version: 3.7.1-4

Hey, the bug tracking mechanism is working again! good.

> 
> screen.postinst has:
> 
> #this is to remove the "/tmp/screens has incorrect permissions" after
> #upgrading to this (3.7.1) version of screen from 3.6 or earlier.
> 
> rm -rf /tmp/screens
> 
> This means that if screen is upgraded while someone is using it, they
> lose the ability to reattach -- because the pipe gets nuked.

That's right, and I'd like to add your killall -0 screen idea, but:

> it might be
> nice to protect this with a "killall -0 screen" and only do the remove
> if the exit status of killall is non-zero. (A warning about running
> screens might be nice... though if the whole thing is wrapped in a
> check for the correct permissions, that would help too...)

But what should I do if the exit status *is* non-zero? sacrifice
the working of screen because someone was running at install time?
(if you do have a old screen version, and don't remove the /tmp/screens,
you will not be able to run screen).

Also, what is this about checking the permissions? who's permissions?
Isn't root the only one running the screen.postinst script?

Anyway, thanks for the bug report (and for the spelling error),

-- 
joost witteveen
            joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl
          joostje@debian.org
--
Use Debian Linux!