Re: apt does not update directory permissions
On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 01:07:36PM +0100, Christoph Mathys wrote: > We are using debian packages to distribute our software inside the > company. Recently I messed up the permissions inside a package: A > whole directory-tree suddenly belonged to root:root, when it should > belong to someone else. The fix for the package was quick, permissions > now look ok again (checking with dpkg -c and clean install). However, > when I update the old (broken) package (dpkg -i or apt-get install, > does not matter), only the file permissions get corrected, all folders > still have wrong permissions. > > Is this a "feature" of apt to only correct file permissions? Do I > seriously need to hack something into postinst to fix this correctly? (apt is not involved in this, as a system for acquiring packages from repositories, resolving dependencies, and sequencing installation and removal operations; this is a characteristic of dpkg, the low-level package manager that actually deals with individual file system objects.) In general dpkg is quite limited in what it can safely do with directories, because they are shared between packages: it is common for a given directory to be shared among many packages, and expensive to track this because you'd end up doing things like tracking what every package thinks the permissions of /usr should be. Then you get hairy corner cases: what should you do if 25% of the packages on your system think that /usr should be mode 0775? How about 75% holding that opinion about /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu? We don't particularly want to make that kind of thing a conflict. So, dpkg tracks the presence or absence of directories, and will attempt to tidy them up if you remove the last package that installed one, but it doesn't do anything with their permissions. I strongly suspect that any attempted cure for this would be much worse than the disease. If you want to fix a historical mistake in directory permissions, then yes, you need to do so in a maintainer script, and take responsibility for any coordination between packages that may need to happen in order to do so safely. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/
On 07/12/11 23:35, Colin Watson wrote: > Simplifications here belong at higher levels. For example, the > suggestion made somewhere in this thread that there's no good reason > for Firefox to require the full path to an executable to open a > resource seems like an excellent one. That's tracked in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=397700 Regards Chris -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:26:01PM -0800, Dane Mutters wrote: > On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Dane Mutters wrote: > > I've seen a bit of this obscuring mentality creep into modern Linux > > (including Ubuntu), in the form of auto-generated /etc/ stuff--which isn't > > necessarily a bad thing, except when you can't easily change what's getting > > generated (GRUB 2, anyone? FWIW, grub.cfg is deliberately in /boot, rather than putting an autogenerated file in /etc. (/boot/grub/menu.lst had its own problems, as a partly-autogenerated and partly-manually-maintained file - a scheme that might almost have been designed to create bugs.) > > Yes, by dumping everything into /usr/bin, you might make binaries easier > > to find for basically Linux-illiterate users who probably wouldn't know > > what to do with the binaries once they found them. You would, however, > > make things very difficult for any sysadmin, power-user, or person trying > > to learn Linux's guts, as well as anybody else (who didn't design the > > system or spend days/weeks reading about it...) who might actually have a > > good reason to be mucking around in those areas (i.e. not be on his way to > > screwing it all up through ignorance or recklessness)--that is, if things > > are linked or otherwise obscured. Quite so. > > So, if the Ubuntu developers really do want to simplify the filesystem > > structure, Quite frankly: there has been no discussion among Ubuntu developers about doing anything of the kind, and I seriously doubt that it would ever make it onto our to-do list which has more than enough on it already without making work for ourselves. The suggestion on this list of moving binaries to /usr/bin hasn't been made by Ubuntu developers. If it ever came up as a serious prospective Ubuntu development project, I would argue strongly against it on the grounds that the gains, if any, would be negligible compared to the work involved and the bugs that would be likely to be created. Simplifications here belong at higher levels. For example, the suggestion made somewhere in this thread that there's no good reason for Firefox to require the full path to an executable to open a resource seems like an excellent one. It should rarely be necessary to care about the full path to an executable at all, never mind attempting to consolidate them all into one directory. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: apt does not update directory permissions
On 12/07/2011 04:22 PM, Phillip Susi wrote: > Did you use dpkg-statoverride? Nope. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: apt does not update directory permissions
Did you use dpkg-statoverride? On 12/7/2011 7:07 AM, Christoph Mathys wrote: We are using debian packages to distribute our software inside the company. Recently I messed up the permissions inside a package: A whole directory-tree suddenly belonged to root:root, when it should belong to someone else. The fix for the package was quick, permissions now look ok again (checking with dpkg -c and clean install). However, when I update the old (broken) package (dpkg -i or apt-get install, does not matter), only the file permissions get corrected, all folders still have wrong permissions. Is this a "feature" of apt to only correct file permissions? Do I seriously need to hack something into postinst to fix this correctly? Christoph -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
apt does not update directory permissions
We are using debian packages to distribute our software inside the company. Recently I messed up the permissions inside a package: A whole directory-tree suddenly belonged to root:root, when it should belong to someone else. The fix for the package was quick, permissions now look ok again (checking with dpkg -c and clean install). However, when I update the old (broken) package (dpkg -i or apt-get install, does not matter), only the file permissions get corrected, all folders still have wrong permissions. Is this a "feature" of apt to only correct file permissions? Do I seriously need to hack something into postinst to fix this correctly? Christoph -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
