Bug#61801: marked as done (interesting question)
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Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 00:16:38 +0100
From: Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>
To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org, debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org
Cc: Debian bug reports <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: Re: interesting question
Message-ID: <20000405001638.D5215@polya>
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In-Reply-To: <20000404124827.A31680@kitenet.net>; from joeyh@debian.org on Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 12:48:27PM -0700
Package: packaging-manual
Version: 3.1.1.1
On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 12:48:27PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote to -devel:
> Here's an interesting hypothetical question we came up with at the
> office:
>
> Suppose a .deb is released that does rm -rf / in its prerm. We know it
> has been installed on a bunch of machines all over the place. How can we
> safely upgrade them?
>
> [explanation of difficulty snipped]
I just wrote a long thought about similar problems, and then realised
that I didn't understand the packaging manual, section 6.3, para 1.
Could I suggest the following rewording to clarify the issue (which
more clearly describes the behaviour of dpkg):
-----
1. If a version the package is already installed, call
old-prerm upgrade new-version
- 2. If this gives an error (ie, a non-zero exit status), dpkg
- will attempt instead:
+ 2. If the script runs but exits with a non-zero exit status, dpkg
+ will attempt:
new-prerm failed-upgrade old-version
Error unwind, for both the above cases:
old-postinst abort-upgrade new-version
-----
Still doesn't solve the problem Joey has, though. I wonder whether
the possibility of having a "prerm-override" file would help, or
whether it would just complicate things unnecessarily. Although I
could imagine situations in which non-malicious but still serious bugs
in prerm's could cause similar situations to arise. Basically, in the
current setup, prerm bugs are mostly unfixable.
Julian
--
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
Donate free food to the world's hungry: see http://www.thehungersite.com/
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Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 21:45:31 +0100
From: Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>
To: 61801-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Fixed
Message-ID: <20010610214531.A10608@polya>
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Sender: Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>
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This is fixed in the current version of policy (3.5.5.0).
And the malicious prerm code can be solved by having the new version
of the package pre-depend on a package which removes or otherwise
fixes the bad prerm -- it's a bad hack, but would solve the problem.
Julian
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://people.debian.org/~jdg
Donate free food to the world's hungry: see http://www.thehungersite.com/
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