file lock on /var/cache/apt/archives/lock

[Tim Janik <timj@gtk.org>]

hi all,

aparently with the last version of apt-get, a call to
create a write file lock has being added for the file
/var/cache/apt/archives/lock.
this creates problems for systems where
/var/cache/apt/archives/ is an nfs mounted directory,
with the following symptoms:

# apt-get -dy upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages have been kept back
  debconf debiandoc-sgml gmc gnumeric ical libhtml-parser-perl mc-common rep rep-gtk sawmill
  scotty sendmail ssh
47 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the download directory

due to:

open("/var/cache/apt/archives/lock", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0640) = 13
fcntl(13, F_SETLK, {type=F_WRLCK, whence=SEEK_SET, start=0, len=0}) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
close(13)                               = 0
close(6)                                = 0
close(7)                                = 0
close(8)                                = 0
close(9)                                = 0
close(10)                               = 0
close(11)                               = 0
close(12)                               = 0
munmap(0x4035c000, 147456)              = 0
munmap(0x40208000, 1392065)             = 0
close(5)                                = 0
write(2, "E: ", 3)                      = 3
write(2, "Could not get lock /var/cache/ap"..., 77) = 77
write(2, "\n", 1)                       = 1
write(2, "E: ", 3)                      = 3
write(2, "Unable to lock the download dire"..., 37) = 37
write(2, "\n", 1)                       = 1
close(4)                                = 0
munmap(0x40014000, 4096)                = 0
_exit(100)                              = ?

there's essentially no sane solution to that situation,
as without a file lock, apt-get will of course refuse
to downgrade.

---
ciaoTJ