Your message dated Mon, 18 Aug 2025 16:50:13 +0000
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Bug#884824: fixed in etckeeper 1.18.23-1
has caused the Debian Bug report #884824,
regarding etckeeper: daily autocommit is run even though
AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact [email protected]
immediately.)
--
884824: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=884824
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: etckeeper
Version: 1.18.7-1
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
Some time ago I disabled daily autocommits for my /etc/ directory:
commit 1e123419c83f254aa27b831f8b268a8f575211dc
Author: Martin Schwenke <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Sep 8 10:51:19 2015 +1000
etckeeper: Be less automatic
diff --git a/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf b/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf
index 2aec35e..fd9cfb8 100644
--- a/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf
+++ b/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ DARCS_COMMIT_OPTIONS="-a"
# Uncomment to avoid etckeeper committing existing changes
# to /etc automatically once per day.
-#AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1
+AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1
# Uncomment the following to avoid special file warning
# (the option is enabled automatically by cronjob regardless).
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ DARCS_COMMIT_OPTIONS="-a"
# Uncomment to avoid etckeeper committing existing changes to
# /etc before installation. It will cancel the installation,
# so you can commit the changes by hand.
-#AVOID_COMMIT_BEFORE_INSTALL=1
+AVOID_COMMIT_BEFORE_INSTALL=1
# The high-level package manager that's being used.
# (apt, pacman-g2, yum, dnf, zypper etc)
This has worked until recently.
Now I see daily autocommits again. When I check /var/log/syslog I
see:
Dec 18 16:06:26 rover systemd[1]: Starting Autocommit of changes in /etc
directory...
Dec 18 16:06:27 rover systemd[1]: Started Autocommit of changes in /etc
directory.
It appears that a systemd job is active:
$ systemctl list-units | grep etckeeper
etckeeper.timer
loaded active waiting Daily autocommit of changes in /etc
directory
However, the comment in /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf.dpkg-dist says:
# Etckeeper includes both a cron job and a systemd timer, which each
# can commit exiting changes to /etc automatically once per day.
# To enable the systemd timer, run: systemctl enable etckeeper.timer
# The cron job is enabled by default; to disable it, uncomment this next line.
#AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1
I certainly haven't enabled the the systemd timer.
Note that I don't seem to be able to disable the systemd timer:
root@rover:/etc# systemctl disable etckeeper.timer
root@rover:/etc# systemctl list-units | grep etckeeper
etckeeper.timer
loaded active waiting Daily autocommit of changes in /etc
directory
Clearly, I'm not smart enough to use something as excellent as
systemd. ;-)
I think that, as documented, the systemd job should not be enabled by
default.
Alternatively, /etc/etckeeper/daily could be modified to honour
AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1. Then it would not matter if the systemd
job is active and is immortal. In that case a Linux user with over 20
years experience would still be able to disable the daily autocommit
in an expected way. ;-)
Thanks...
peace & happiness,
martin
-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (300,
'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8),
LANGUAGE=en_AU:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages etckeeper depends on:
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.65
ii git 1:2.15.1-1
Versions of packages etckeeper recommends:
ii cron [cron-daemon] 3.0pl1-128.1
Versions of packages etckeeper suggests:
ii sudo 1.8.21p2-2
-- Configuration Files:
/etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf changed:
VCS="git"
GIT_COMMIT_OPTIONS=""
HG_COMMIT_OPTIONS=""
BZR_COMMIT_OPTIONS=""
DARCS_COMMIT_OPTIONS="-a"
AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1
AVOID_COMMIT_BEFORE_INSTALL=1
HIGHLEVEL_PACKAGE_MANAGER=apt
LOWLEVEL_PACKAGE_MANAGER=dpkg
PUSH_REMOTE=""
-- debconf information:
etckeeper/purge: true
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Source: etckeeper
Source-Version: 1.18.23-1
Done: Antoine Beaupré <[email protected]>
We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
etckeeper, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.
A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.
Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you
have further comments please address them to [email protected],
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.
Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Antoine Beaupré <[email protected]> (supplier of updated etckeeper package)
(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing [email protected])
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Format: 1.8
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:13:42 -0400
Source: etckeeper
Architecture: source
Version: 1.18.23-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Antoine Beaupré <[email protected]>
Changed-By: Antoine Beaupré <[email protected]>
Closes: 884824
Changes:
etckeeper (1.18.23-1) unstable; urgency=medium
.
* new upstream release (Closes: #884824)
Checksums-Sha1:
3b8cb874c2398e7b69d8c08799139ab739556c14 1332 etckeeper_1.18.23-1.dsc
20e6122e5f72fa48e0f3654264962dc25f6b43f8 126006 etckeeper_1.18.23.orig.tar.gz
d884c09d0567ba4a2edcf647983aa57878dc2f50 26308
etckeeper_1.18.23-1.debian.tar.xz
3de2e1349621df4337f07ab760558642853324c0 6738
etckeeper_1.18.23-1_amd64.buildinfo
Checksums-Sha256:
a096dc379aa87da5cda6e4530118f411c4254fbd6054e5ba05057625e2b01859 1332
etckeeper_1.18.23-1.dsc
cfd068f1f7ae64702747e4ea77e089168743c8b889b941577eac8fc67c232e8c 126006
etckeeper_1.18.23.orig.tar.gz
22c4663fe472a5433939afbc9e25d0cc1a801fdf859bd7e7317a634f54154d3f 26308
etckeeper_1.18.23-1.debian.tar.xz
5c3c2914f2c2c0e28d053a1e5bf0216f5752b0022d8c8c0c1537959e0112b3bb 6738
etckeeper_1.18.23-1_amd64.buildinfo
Files:
97cda01ee5a92be16e562e4ad1c3c14a 1332 admin optional etckeeper_1.18.23-1.dsc
075fcafc6bd7ac0d42e20743f31517d9 126006 admin optional
etckeeper_1.18.23.orig.tar.gz
550a8950e948988cdef9d91390551a1c 26308 admin optional
etckeeper_1.18.23-1.debian.tar.xz
b2d5bec921e75558f4c490a6068a0550 6738 admin optional
etckeeper_1.18.23-1_amd64.buildinfo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iHUEARYKAB0WIQS7ts1MmNdOE1inUqYCKTpvpOU0cwUCaKNR+wAKCRACKTpvpOU0
cxA5AQCv/tSikRdCnzlVdDLrwoEHX5OOmDEu9eA6r387n27O2AD+P8S7xPeHHbNb
2FYo+zpPdI7fISpW3XT1h+JqyysFbQU=
=Lraw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
pgpeyub7ep713.pgp
Description: PGP signature
--- End Message ---
