Re: systemd may silently break your system!
On Sat 27 Jul 2024 at 09:26:49 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On 2024-07-26, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> >
> > > The /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf symlink has been removed
> > > (currently in unstable) *without any announcement*, so that
> > > the /etc/sysctl.conf file (which is still documented, BTW)
> > > is no longer read.
> > >
> > > So, be careful if you have important settings there (security...).
>
> I kept wondering: what does this have to do with the Subject
> header? The files in question belong to the procps package, not
> to systemd, right?
>
> As it turns out, it's a combination of the two packages. In bookworm,
> /etc/sysctl.conf is a Conffile of the procps package, and
> /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf is a regular file (non-Conffile) of
> the systemd package.
>
> In unstable, apparently, *both* of them are gone.
>
> <https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/s/systemd/systemd_256.4-2_changelog> says:
> [ Luca Boccassi ]
> * Drop /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf symlink procps no longer ships
> /etc/sysctl.conf (Closes: #1076190)
>
> while <https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/p/procps/procps_4.0.4-5_changelog> says:
> procps (2:4.0.4-5) unstable; urgency=medium
>
> * Add Recommends: linux-sysctl-defaults Closes: #1074156
> * Remove /etc/sysctl.conf as using /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf is better
> * Updated /etc/sysctld.d/README
>
> So it seems to have been a removal performed at the whim of the procps
> maintainer. Perhaps there was discussion somewhere amongst the developers
> that I'm not aware of.
>
> It does seem like the sort of change that would belong in the NEWS
> file, but I don't see it in
> <https://salsa.debian.org/debian/procps/-/blob/master/debian/NEWS?ref_type=heads>.
I'd agree (it's a NEWS bug), but the file is AFAICT functionless.
If you've added any functionality to it, then I'd expect upgrading
procps to give the usual dialogue whenever a conffile has been
modified.
But if you have installed systemd without procps in the past, did
that just result in a dangling symlink? As I have both systemd
and procps installed, I'm not sure what happens in this case.
As far as moving the file is concerned, I would have thought
this was just part of the evolution from big-file-under-/etc/
to individual-snippets-under-/etc/foo.d/ that's been happening
for years. And I can't find another instance on my system of
a /etc/foo.d/NN-bar → /etc/bar.conf where the symlink has a
sequence number. (IOW bar.conf doesn't "know" that it's part of
an ordered collection of configurations.)
Cheers,
David.
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