Bug#1051577: iproute2: obsolete conffiles

[gregor herrmann]

Package: iproute2
Version: 6.5.0-1
Severity: normal

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After upgrading to 6.5.0-1 adequate shows:

adequate found packaging bugs
- -----------------------------

iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.d/README
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos.d/README
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_dsfield
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/nl_protos
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/ematch_map
iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/bpf_pinning

Cf. dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) and dh_installdeb(1) / package.maintscript
/ rm_conffile.

Cheers,
gregor

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[Sven Joachim]

Control: found -1 6.5.0-2

On 2023-09-10 00:55 +0200, gregor herrmann wrote:

> Package: iproute2
> Version: 6.5.0-1
> Severity: normal
>

> After upgrading to 6.5.0-1 adequate shows:
>
> adequate found packaging bugs

> -----------------------------
>
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.d/README
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos.d/README
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_dsfield
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/nl_protos
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/ematch_map
> iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/bpf_pinning

There are a few more leftovers still present in 6.5.0-2:

,----
| $ adequate iproute2
| iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/group
| iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_realms
| iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_scopes
| iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_tables
`----

There are also the directories /etc/iproute2/rt_protos.d,
/etc/iproute2/rt_tables.d and /etc/iproute2 which are no longer shipped
in the package. Unfortunately dpkg-maintscript-helper does not clean
those up automatically (see #584185).

Cheers,
Sven

[Daniel Gröber]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 08:32:10AM +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
> > After upgrading to 6.5.0-1 adequate shows:
> >
> > adequate found packaging bugs

> > -----------------------------
> >
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.d/README
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos.d/README
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_protos
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_dsfield
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/nl_protos
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/ematch_map
> > iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/bpf_pinning
>

> There are a few more leftovers still present in 6.5.0-2:
>
> ,----
> | $ adequate iproute2
> | iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/group
> | iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_realms
> | iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_scopes
> | iproute2: obsolete-conffile /etc/iproute2/rt_tables
> `----
>
> There are also the directories /etc/iproute2/rt_protos.d,
> /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.d and /etc/iproute2 which are no longer shipped
> in the package. Unfortunately dpkg-maintscript-helper does not clean
> those up automatically (see #584185).

I want to question whether removing these conffiles is a good idea at
all. I'm probably one of the few people that actually muck around in there
but it seems like this is going to break things for any users that do.

Is it really sensible to move these files to /usr/lib in the standard
Debian installation? It seems to me upstream only wants to better support
/usr-only deployments without /etc:

commit 0a0a8f12fa1b03dd0ccbebf5f85209d1c8a0f580
Read configuration files from /etc and /usr

Add support for the so called "stateless" configuration pattern (read
from /etc, fall back to /usr), giving system administrators a way to
define local configuration without changing any distro-provided files.

In practice this means that each configuration file FOO is loaded
from /usr/lib/iproute2/FOO unless /etc/iproute2/FOO exists.

So why not simply keep the conffiles in /etc for regular admins and let
people that want to do image based deployments create /usr/lib/iproute2 if
they want to override or remove /etc?

--Daniel

[Luca Boccassi]

As far as I understand dpkg's conffile machinery should recognize if
you changed anything, and leave it in place. Upstream moved the
default ones to /usr, so we just follow what they do.

[Daniel Gröber]

Hi Luca,

On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 01:06:06PM +0100, Luca Boccassi wrote:
> > I want to question whether removing these conffiles is a good idea at
> > all. I'm probably one of the few people that actually muck around in there
> > but it seems like this is going to break things for any users that do.
>

> As far as I understand dpkg's conffile machinery should recognize if
> you changed anything, and leave it in place. Upstream moved the
> default ones to /usr, so we just follow what they do.

Right. Think of an admin having to adjust these config files though:
previously they could just `editor /etc/iproute2/rt_tables` and get on with
things. Now anyone needing to do that will have to do a doubletake, figure
out why /etc/iproute2 is missing, realize that it's at /usr/lib/iproute2
now, copy that over and finally edit.

Is that friction really warrented to cater to a specialized niche use-case?

Please consider overriding upstream's decision here.

--Daniel

[Bastian Blank]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 01:06:06PM +0100, Luca Boccassi wrote:

> As far as I understand dpkg's conffile machinery should recognize if
> you changed anything, and leave it in place. Upstream moved the
> default ones to /usr, so we just follow what they do.

Actually using rm_conffile is wrong. This moves the file to
*.dpkg-bak. However the expected behaviour is to keep them around
without renaming, just removed from the dpkg database.

Bastian

--
"That unit is a woman."
"A mass of conflicting impulses."
-- Spock and Nomad, "The Changeling", stardate 3541.9

[Luca Boccassi]

Yes, it is warranted, both because it's exactly the correct behaviour
for a package, and also because we are certainly not spending time and
resources to go against upstream choices, especially when they are the
right choices.

[Luca Boccassi]

Control: severity -1 serious

(stop migration until I have time to further fix it)

On Mon, 11 Sept 2023 at 15:56, Bastian Blank <wa...@debian.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 01:06:06PM +0100, Luca Boccassi wrote:
> > As far as I understand dpkg's conffile machinery should recognize if
> > you changed anything, and leave it in place. Upstream moved the
> > default ones to /usr, so we just follow what they do.
>
> Actually using rm_conffile is wrong. This moves the file to
> *.dpkg-bak. However the expected behaviour is to keep them around
> without renaming, just removed from the dpkg database.

I see - I will do that next week, as I am travelling this week, so
bumping severity to stop migration