Bug#1055454: spamassassin: Spamassassin in Bookworm dropped SysVinit script

[Patrik Schindler]

Package: spamassassin
Version: 4.0.0-6
Severity: important

Surprisingly, after upgrading to Bookworm, the SysVinit script to start
spamassassin is no longer there. This renders spamassassin unusable for
SysVinit users without manual intervention.

Because SysVinit is still supported in Debian in general, please revive
SysVinit support.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 12.2
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-13-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages spamassassin depends on:
ii adduser 3.134
ii curl 7.88.1-10+deb12u4
ii libhtml-parser-perl 3.81-1
ii libhttp-date-perl 6.05-2
ii libio-string-perl 1.08-4
ii libmail-dkim-perl 1.20230212-1
ii libnet-dns-perl 1.36-1
ii libnetaddr-ip-perl 4.079+dfsg-2+b1
ii libsocket6-perl 0.29-3
ii libsys-hostname-long-perl 1.5-3
ii libwww-perl 6.68-1
ii perl [libarchive-tar-perl] 5.36.0-7
ii sysvinit-utils [lsb-base] 3.06-4

Versions of packages spamassassin recommends:
ii gnupg 2.2.40-1.1
pn libbsd-resource-perl <none>
pn libmail-dmarc-perl <none>
ii libmail-spf-perl 2.9.0-5
ii perl [libsys-syslog-perl] 5.36.0-7
ii sa-compile 4.0.0-6
ii spamc 4.0.0-6

Versions of packages spamassassin suggests:
ii libdbi-perl 1.643-4
pn libencode-detect-perl <none>
pn libgeoip2-perl <none>
ii libio-socket-ssl-perl 2.081-2
pn libnet-patricia-perl <none>
ii perl [libcompress-zlib-perl] 5.36.0-7
pn pyzor <none>
pn razor <none>

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/default/spamassassin changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/init.pre changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/local.cf changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/v310.pre changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/v320.pre changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/v341.pre changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/v342.pre changed [not included]
/etc/spamassassin/v400.pre changed [not included]

-- debconf information:
spamassassin/upgrade/cancel: Continue
spamassassin/upgrade/2.40:
spamassassin/upgrade/2.42u: No
spamassassin/upgrade/2.40w:
spamassassin/upgrade/2.42m: No

[Noah Meyerhans]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix
Control: severity -1 wishlist

On 11/6/2023 8:41 AM, Patrik Schindler wrote:
> Surprisingly, after upgrading to Bookworm, the SysVinit script to start
> spamassassin is no longer there. This renders spamassassin unusable for
> SysVinit users without manual intervention.
>
> Because SysVinit is still supported in Debian in general, please revive
> SysVinit support.

The removal of the sysvinit script was intentional.  Per Debian policy
section 9.3.1, "Packages including a service unit may optionally include
an init script to support other init systems". Spamd provides a service
unit. There is no requirement to support any other startup mechanisms or
init systems, and I have no interest in supporting the old init script
anymore.


Sorry.

noah

[Patrik Schindler]

Am 06.11.2023 um 19:28 schrieb Noah Meyerhans <fr...@morgul.net>:

> The removal of the sysvinit script was intentional. Per Debian policy section 9.3.1, "Packages including a service unit may optionally include an init script to support other init systems". Spamd provides a service unit. There is no requirement to support any other startup mechanisms or init systems, and I have no interest in supporting the old init script anymore.

Thank you for your clear words.

:wq! PoC

[Noah Meyerhans]

On 11/6/2023 2:53 PM, Patrik Schindler wrote:
> The removal of the sysvinit script was intentional. Per Debian policy
> section 9.3.1, "Packages including a service unit may optionally
> include an init script to support other init systems". Spamd provides
> a service unit. There is no requirement to support any other startup
> mechanisms or init systems, and I have no interest in supporting the
> old init script anymore.
> Thank you for your clear words.

Hi Patrik. I apologize; I was getting ahead of myself when indicating
that the spamassassin init script is gone by design. It's not,
actually.  It's just moved to the spamd package, which was broken out
from the base spamassassin package. /etc/init.d/spamd is what you're
looking for.

noah

[Patrik Schindler]

Hello,

Am 19.11.2023 um 17:52 schrieb Noah Meyerhans <fr...@morgul.net>:

> Hi Patrik. I apologize; I was getting ahead of myself when indicating that the spamassassin init script is gone by design. It's not, actually. It's just moved to the spamd package, which was broken out from the base spamassassin package. /etc/init.d/spamd is what you're looking for.

Thanks.

I have noticed that spamassassin has undergone a package split to spamassassin and spamd. Unfortunately, spamassassin did not pull in spamd, as I'd have expected on upgrade-time. This package-split is also not mentioned in the Debian package specific upgrade notes, where I'd have expected to find such an information:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html

Shortly after my report I've restored Deb11 from backup due to too many unexpected things happening, leaving me with a half-broken system. SA being only part of the party.

Something which is novel for me. I'm currently testing upgrades on less complex installs. Upgrades on earlier releases were mostly hands on at conffiles, but Deb12 upgrades have shown some… quirks for SysVinit users, mainly due to the lack of (IMHO) proper dependencies, and documentation.

:wq! PoC