Hi, one of the changes in 3.8.1 was, that support for tmpfs on /var/run (and /var/tmp) became mandatory [9.3.2]. Lintian is now also complaining very loudly (error) if your package ships a directory in /var/run or /var/tmp and suggests to create them in the init script. While I can see the benefits of having /var/tmp on a tmpfs to a certain degree, I don't really see them for /var/run, instead they make things more complicated, slower and error prone (for imho no real gain) 1.) It's not the default on Debian anyway 2.) A lot of packages must be changed for this new policy 3.) You have to check for the directory on each boot, meaning wasted cpu cycles, even if you don't use this feature (as said, its default is off on Debian) 4.) You have to manually cleanup in postrm. (I guess most packages will forget that, leaving cruft around) 5.) If your package does not have an init script (I happen to maintain two such packages), I now have to create init scripts simply to create a /var/run directory. That's insane and even more wasting cpu cycles. As I said, I don't see the benefit of a tmpfs for /var/run which would justify this policy change so would very much appreciate to here valid reasons for this change. I also think, that the recommendation to remove the /var/run directories and creating them manually on each boot in each package is the wrong approach. For people, that want to use a tmpfs for /var/run, there could be a script on shutdown which backups (or copies) the content of /var/run and restores it on boot (the creation of this backup could also be triggered by a dpkg file system trigger, which would eliminate of the backup being outdated because of a hard reset. This would obviously only happen, if RAMRUN is set) This way, people using the default (not tmpfs) would not get the performance hit and we wouldn't have to modify a lot of packages. So my suggestion is, to rework 9.3.2 and remove this requirement again. And again, can someone please enlighten my, why tmpfs for /var/run is a good idea anyway. Thoughts, comments? Michael -- Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the universe are pointed away from Earth?
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