Re: Require packages to build without any configured DNS
Mattia Rizzolo wrote:
> during the year, a src:dnspython change made it so that any software
> importing that library now requires a valid /etc/resolv.conf with at
> least one nameserver configured.
>
> This also made it so that something between 50-100 packages now fail to
> build if the build system doesn't have any working /etc/resolv.conf. I
> venture to say that this is a very reasonable configuration to have in a
> build system that tries to be network-disabled.
>
> It must be noted that no actual network operation happen, so this
> doesn't fall into the "no network activity" bucket.
>
>
> This is the bug that was filed against dnspython: https://bugs.debian.org/989171
>
>
> Do anybody on the list have any opinion on where is the bug, on
> dnspython, or on the build environment?
I think dnspython's previous approach was correct: just like glibc, musl, and
other libraries, if /etc/resolv.conf is missing they should treat that as
though it specified a nameserver on localhost. The change to make that a
configuration error, instead, breaks real configurations that intentionally
don't have /etc/resolv.conf.
Among other things, having a DNS server on localhost (or forwarding the DNS
port on localhost to your real DNS server) means that a chroot without
/etc/resolv.conf still has functional DNS.
Now, that said, if the build process actually wants a DNS server to run tests
against, it should provide or depend on such a DNS server, and configure it for
such tests. But a build process that's just *importing the dnspython library*
should not need to have either /etc/resolv.conf *or* a functional DNS server.
- Josh Triplett
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