Bug#631857: developers-reference: please document best practices for relocating binaries
Package: developers-reference
Severity: wishlist
Recently a bug (#631830) was found that was caused by relocating
a binary from /usr/sbin to /sbin without adapting an other package that
uses an hardcoded path to this binary (in /etc/sudoers.d/).
As far as I know, a compatibility symlink would not have helped in this
specific case (because sudo would not have followed it), but greping the
archive for /usr/sbin/binaryname would have found this bug. It would be
great to have best practices for future binary relocations documented in
the policy, for example, searching the archive for the binary name with
full path could be recommended (given that the maintainer has the
required resources available) and compatibility symlinks, depending on
the specific case, either for one release cycle or for ever (e.g.,
/usr/bin/which), could be suggested.
Regards
Carsten
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