Re: Uploaded faqomatic 2.506-2 (source all) to master
On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Christian Schwarz wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Scott Ellis wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Christian Schwarz wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 scott@debian.org wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > > > faqomatic (2.506-2) unstable; urgency=low
> > > > .
> > > > * Rebuild with new debhelper to make lintian happier.
> > > > Lintian will still complain about /usr/lib/cgi-bin/fom, but I
> > > > have no intention of moving the file, since it needs to be
> > > > there for apache to work, since apache won't follow symlinks.
> > >
> > > I guess you are referring to the message
> > > E: faqomatic: file-in-usr-marked-as-conffile /usr/lib/cgi-bin/fom
> > > with that.
> > >
> > > However, it's not good to have conffiles below /usr since /usr might be
> > > mounted read-only. Is there really not better solution?
> >
> > Well, it isn't exactly a conffile that way. It only needs changed if the
> > user wants to modify where faqomatic stores its data. fom is a small perl
> > stub that calls perl libraries to do most of the work. Moving it out of
> > /usr/lib/cgi-bin will break any setup that doesn't allow apache to follow
> > symlinks from cgi-bin. I made it a conffile for the few people who might
> > want to modify it, but it isn't likely to fall under the frequent
> > modification as some conffiles in /etc
>
> Well, if fom is just a Perl script than I suggest moving the variable code
> (e.g., variables) into a conffile /etc/fomrc (or similar) and include this
> file within fom with "require '/etc/fomrc';" Does this solve the problem?
>
>
fom is already a small stub. Making it a much larger, more complex
script just to meet an esoteric "conf file" policy seems rediculous.
Besides it needing to untaint any external data, it may also need to
run a different binary, depending on if you use a standard perl
binary or the debian method. This is for people who want (or need)
to run the script setid (or run a setid embedded interpreter). Am I
off base on this?
Perhaps the script isn't what needs tweaking, but rather the policy?
There are numerous scripts on my system in the /usr hierarchy. As
system administrator, I reserve the right to modify any one of them.
Does that also break debian policy? What I mean is, should all
scripts be listed as conf files? I think this is an old discussion.
It would be better if we had a separate "script" tag. If there are
security implications for any part of this discussion, then I think
we need Ian's input.
In any case, it would be better to leave fom the way it is, unless
the upstream author agrees to change it. He's a pretty agreeable
guy, so maybe someone should ask for his input on it.
Cheers,
Richard
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