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Bug#42052: PROPOSAL] /var/mail and /var/spool/mail



On Wed, Aug 04, 1999 at 09:33:46AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > I second this proposal, but please change the word "dependency"
> > > by "Pre-Dependency" (otherwise I would formally object ;-).
> > > Rationale: base-files (>=whatever) must be unpacked and *configured*
> > > before *any* package using /var/mail is *unpacked*, because the symlink
> > > /var/mail -> /var/spool/mail will be handled in base-files' postinst.
> > Obviously and I support this addition.
> 
> I'm confused. No packages install things into /var/spool/mail or /var/mail
> directly, do they? Nor can I see why they'd want to use this as part of
> their preinst or even postinst. Neither exim nor mutt include /var/anything
> in their dpkg -L output.
> 
> Why does /var/mail have to exist before those packages are unpacked?
> 
> Before they're actually *executed*, I could believe, but that only
> requires an ordinary dependency, no?

MTA's are started immediately on configuration of the package.

If you do not start the program in postinst (say a MUA) all you need is a
dependency.  If the program gets started before that, it has to pre-depend
or deal gracefully with the not-yet-installed case.

It could always fork a watch process that waits for dpkg to finish, but
that would be bad for other reasons.  (remember that xaw-wrappers bug that
caused configuration of other packages to not happen until you got a fixed
version?)  If you start it in postinst, pre-dep base-files.  I probably
should add post an ammended proposal addressing all this shouldn't I?

-- 
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>             Debian GNU/Linux developer
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