Using debconf to notify of serious postinst problems

[Colin Turner <ct@piglets.com>]

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Hi All,

I'm busy packaging my own software (OPUS, ITP Bug#415241) for
submission, and I'm most of the way there. I have two questions though:

1. Original tarballs

There obviously isn't an original tarball that I have patched for
Debian, since I am the upstream author too. It seems clear that Debian
still wants an original tarball created. Should I strip the "debian"
directory from my source code when creating the tarball?

2. Using debconf to notify in postinst

Part of the install is to create a database with given credentials and
import a schema. I have debconf prompting for values and I'm
successfully using these in the postinst script.

My problem/worry is this. I am asking for the root MySQL password - if
it is known - and letting the user know I'll purge this value straight
after database creation and so on.

Then, in postinst, I try to test the credentials before I go further

- -=-

  if [ "$have_password" = "yes" ]
    then
    set +e
    # try a trivial query, logging in as MySQL root
    command_result=`echo "SELECT VERSION()" | mysql -h $data_hostname -u
root --password=$root_db_password 2>&1`
    if [ "$?" -ne 0 ]
    then
      # We don't have valid root credentials
      have_password="no"
      # Warn the user it's all gone fubar - but this makes lintian mad,
remove for now
      echo "WARNING! Invalid MySQL root credentials ..."
      #db_input high opus/invalid_root_password || true
      #db_go
    fi
  fi

- -=-

The problem is, as indicated in the comments, I wanted to use a "note"
template to warn / email the user if the credentials were wrong, before
trying to do what I could. Adding the input causes a lintian warning.
It's not *really* an input since it's just a warning screen, but is this
really bad form. Is there a better alternative?

I considered putting the test in the config script, but I thought I
couldn't rely on a dependent package being operational at that stage?

Any help is welcome, the full source is visible here:

http://foss.ulster.ac.uk/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=opus

if anyone wants to see more of the debian directory.

Thanks,

CT.
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