Re: What is the best way to manage 3rd party debs?
On Tue, 2008-08-12 at 12:52 -0400, Steve C. Lamb wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 06:46:51PM +0200, Aniruddha wrote:
> > They can overwrite existing (core) system files and possibly cause other
> > harm.
>
> No, they can't. Not without your expressed consent...
>
> {grey@igbuntu:~} dpkg --force-help
> dpkg forcing options - control behaviour when problems found:
> warn but continue: --force-<thing>,<thing>,...
> stop with error: --refuse-<thing>,<thing>,... | --no-force-<thing>,...
> Forcing things:
> all [!] Set all force options
> downgrade [*] Replace a package with a lower version
> configure-any Configure any package which may help this one
> hold Process incidental packages even when on hold
> bad-path PATH is missing important programs, problems likely
> not-root Try to (de)install things even when not root
> overwrite Overwrite a file from one package with another
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> ...if they could there would be no reason for dpkg to have
> --force-overwrite.
>
Well, that's another discussion altogether. To give you an idea why I am
asking this here's an excerpt from "Debian system concepts and
techniques" from Martin Krafft:
> checkinstall is limited in what it can do. To be precise, the packages it creates
> can only install files, and checkinstall does not care where it installs them. You
> can overwrite files in home directories with checkinstall, among other things. The
> generated packages cannot modify files. If the installation routine modifies existing
> files, they will be part of the generated package in their entirety. A horror scenario
> occurs when an installation routine adds a user by modification of /etc/passwd,
> which is subsequently included in the package. Installation of the package causes
> /etc/passwd to be completely replaced, and the deinstallation of the package re-
> moves the file, breaking the system in half.
Therefor I can imagine that debs not created by Debian devs can contain possible disastrous changes.
--
Regards,
Aniruddha
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