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Re: cron and package upgrade



Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> When packages are upgraded (e.g. locales), cron scripts can given
> errors. Is it possible to lock (delay) them during a package upgrade?
> Shouldn't this be done by default?

I have noticed this at times too.  When I am doing a full system
upgrade from major release to major release I manually stop cron and
then prevent it from being restarted, then upgrade, then enable it
again.  But cron is just one of the problems.  Any other package may
run into the same problem.  There are an infinite number of possible
packages that may throw an error.

But for the routine daily upgrades I don't think disabling cron is the
right answer.  Also would need to disable many other packages.  I
think the better answer is to consider it a bug in the locales setup
that it is unavailable during some parts of its upgrade.  My question
is why are locales unavailable during an upgrade?  I haven't looked at
what it is doing but I believe it should be possible for the locales
postinst script to upgrade itself in place atomically such that it
would continuously be available.  I think instead of trying to
interlock with cron or other package that it would be more useful to
look at the postinst script and see what it is doing and improve it
there.  It might be easy.  It might be impossible.  But worth a look.

Just my opinion.

Bob

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