Re: debconf as a registry

[Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org>]

* Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>, 2013-11-28, 13:56:
> > I suggest the following test instead:
> >
> > 1) DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install $package
> > 2) rm -rf /var/cache/debconf
> > 3) DEBIAN_PRIORITY=low apt-get install --reinstall $package
> >
> > If any questions are asked in point 3, the package uses debconf as registry.
> >
> > Funnily enough, debconf itself fails this test.
>
> I don't think this is right.  Questions might be asked to know not what to 
> write into some config file, but to determine directly whether the maintainer 
> script should take some action right now (eg, restarting a daemon or not).

Indeed, it's a possible source of false positives. I don't think it'd be a big 
problem in practice, but it can be easily mitigated:

1) DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install $package
2) DEBIAN_PRIORITY=low apt-get install --reinstall $package
3) rm -rf /var/cache/debconf
4) DEBIAN_PRIORITY=low apt-get install --reinstall $package

If any questions are asked in point 4 that weren't asked in point 2, something 
is fishy.

--
Jakub Wilk