Bug#224509: [PROPOSAL] Correct spurious promise regarding TTY availability
Tore Anderson <tore@linpro.no> wrote:
> However, the only place (that I'm aware of) where this practice is
> documented, is in policy.
That may be an issue. However, in that case, I suggest that the
appropriate thing to do is document it elsewhere. A sentence or two
in the dpkg man page should cover it, I would think.
The current behavior is potentially useful -- *if* you're working with
a set of packages under your full control, so you know that no TTY
will be required. Changing that just to accomodate ignorance of the
system seems like a bad idea, IMO.
I've never heard anyone suggest any reason for disallowing TTYs
*except* for running apt-get under cron/at. And running update under
cron is a BAD IDEA(tm)! If something goes wrong, it leaves your
system potentially unusable and inaccessible! If you must do
something under cron's control, use 'apt-get -d', to download the
packages, then do the actual install manually, under human control.
> Doing "ssh somehost apt-get install foo" (or similar).
This is generally a bad idea too. If something goes wrong, you may be
stuck, and unable to reconnect to the machine to fix the problem. If
you ssh in first, and then run apt-get, your chances of fixing any
problems that may arise is far greater, since you'll have an existing
connection and a running shell to work with. Even with "-t", I
recommend against this.
--
Chris Waters | Pneumonoultra- osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org | microscopicsilico- to fit into a single
or xtifr@speakeasy.net | volcaniconi- standalone haiku
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