Bug#250632: Incorrectly identifies menu-methods as needing +x
On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 07:10:04PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 10:56:20AM +0200, Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote:
> > On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 06:18:24PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > > Package: lintian
> > > Version: 1.23.0
> > > Severity: minor
> > >
> > > As per the Debian menu specification, Chapter 5 (talking about scripts in
> > > /etc/menu-methods): "This script should not be executable in the package.
> > > Instead the postinst should add the execute bit and then run update-menus
> > > (if it is executable)."
> > >
> > > Yet, I'm getting the following warning whilst building a new version of
> > > fbpanel with menu support:
> > >
> > > W: fbpanel: script-not-executable ./etc/menu-methods/fbpanel
> >
> > IMHO, this is more like a bug in the menu policy... a really weird
> > demand.
>
> I thought so at first -- to point that I was most of the way through a bug
> report for menu and debhelper. But it does actually make some measure of
> sense, after a bit of thought. If the package in the unpacked state, you
> don't necessarily want it having menu entries created for it. This would
> mostly happen in the case where multiple update-menus using packages are
> unpacked in the one install run. Consider that the menu-methods script
> might use something in the same package that needs to be configured to work
> -- or, worse, needs something from another package that needs to be
> configured. If the script is only made executable on postinst, then
> update-menus runs while the package is unpacked but not configured won't run
> the new script.
>
> Hmm, this could be an argument for not shipping anything +x until
> postinst... I think I'll hold off filing the bugs for that, though...
The greater issue is that it simply is how Debian works -- that packages
in unpacked-but-not-yet-configured state simply might not work. That's
valid for a lot of stuff. I don't think it's up to the menu policy to
have a -- very partial in scope -- workaround for this issue.
Really, changing permissions in postinst _is_ a kludge, and in this
case, it's only to prevent running _via the menu_ of programs that are
half-installed, but doesn't prevent running them via command-line and
any other method.
(I've Cc'd the menu maintainer for his opinion -- though I seem to
remember this has been discussed before, not sure though, and can't find
it anymore)
> At any rate, it's already been kind-of-fixedish once (#229460), but that was
> a subtly different problem. I would imagine that either menu-methods are
> either shipped -x and postinst'd, in which case the current problem needs
> to be fixed, or they're shipped +x and #229460 needs to be reverted (along
> with changing the menu manual).
I agree lintian should follow the menu manual for the time it is like it
is currently (even though that means a very ugly workaround...).
--Jeroen
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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