Bug#300957: xfree86-common: /etc/X11/Xsession temp file test gives confusing error on failure

[Ryan Richter <foo@porto.bmb.uga.edu>]

Package: xfree86-common
Version: 4.3.0.dfsg.1-12
Severity: normal


The following section of /etc/X11/Xsession tries to warn about problems
with /tmp:

# Attempt to create a file of non-zero length in /tmp; a full filesystem can
# cause mysterious X session failures.  We do not use touch, :, or test -w
# because they won't actually create a file with contents.  We also let standard
# error from tempfile and echo go to the error file to aid the user in
# determining what went wrong.
WRITE_TEST=$(tempfile)
if ! echo "*" >>"$WRITE_TEST"; then
  message "warning: unable to write to ${WRITE_TEST%/*}; X session may exit" \
          "with an error"
fi
rm -f "$WRITE_TEST"

I recently found out, by having incorrect permissions on /tmp, that in
fact the only error that gets emtted is "open: Permission  Denied" in
.xsession-errors.  No file name, etc.  The error message in the script
never gets displayed or recorded anywhere as far as I can tell.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.11.3
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages xfree86-common depends on:
ii  debconf                       1.4.46     Debian configuration management sy
ii  debianutils                   2.13.1     Miscellaneous utilities specific t

-- debconf information:
  xfree86-common/experimental_packages: