Re: does /var/games have to be deleted on purge? (if it's empty..)

[Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 01:05:33PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> while testing the archive with piuparts I found a failure reported by 
> piuparts, that after purge /var/games existed on the system while it wasnt 
> there before installing+purging the package. 
> 
> See http://piuparts.debian.org/squeeze/fail/slashem-common_0.0.7E7F3-1.3.log 
> (at the end..)
> 
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#VARGAMESVARIABLEGAMEDATA says 
> that /var/games is an optional directory, which must be present if the 
> corresponding subsystem (here: a game) is present. 

Not that the FHS definition of optional does not says that it should 
added/removed when games are added/removed, rather than a 

> Thus I would conclude that it has to be removed on purge if there are no other 
> games installed. Right? Or should I make piuparts ignore the /var/games 
> directory if present after purge?

The only mention of /var/games in debian policy is:

     The permissions on `/var/games' are mode 755, owner `root' and group
     `root'.

Which kinda imply that /var/games is always present.

So I would not find a system with an empty /var/games buggy.

I think it might be problematic to remove it on purge in some corner cases:
1) package A create an empty /var/games directory.
2) package B is purged and remove /var/games.
3) package A try to register an highscore in /var/games/A.hiscore and fails
because /var/games was removed.

This is a corner case because this assume that A is set suid-root, which is 
unusual.

So my conclusion is that policy is unclear, and that a policy proposal
clarifying the situation should be made prior reporting the bugs.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.