Re: Bug#191036: /run/ *not* shelved

[Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>]

On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 16:03, Bill Allombert wrote:
> So the state of this is 'pending implementation' rather than shelved

I am not so sure that it is going to be implemented.  Note that
there are people who don't want the standard location of the "run"
files to change even if changing their standard location would
make life easier for administrators of read-only-root
network-mounted-var systems.  They say that those administrators
should deal with their situation by setting up /run/ themselves
and installing a symlink from /etc/ to /run/ for each "run" file.

So, we are currently working toward a situation in which such a
symlink farm will actually work.  The biggest remaining obstacle
is the mount program.[1]  The maintainer of the program has told me
that he is prepared to apply a clean, tested patch.  I have been
investigating what needs to be done and updating #154438 as I go
along.  The changes aren't exactly trivial.  Mount takes a fcntl()
lock on /etc/mtab~ which starts out life as /etc/mtab~$$ .  Mount
then writes to /etc/mtab.tmp and renames this to /etc/mtab, then
deletes the lockfile.  All of this will have to be done in the
directory of the target of /etc/mtab , but the current code uses
hard coded filenames throughout.  On the up side, one doesn't have
to deal with the realpath() fiasco because mount has its own
myrealpath() function.  Any volunteers?

[1] For status information see the readonly-root README file at
    http://panopticon.csustan.edu/thood/readonly-root.html
--
Thomas