I know this is a wontfix, but maybe this should be reconsidered in light of buster’s changes? With the switch of su as referenced here: https://sources.debian.org/src/util-linux/2.33.1-0.1/debian/util-linux.NEWS , there is no reason why dpkg shouldn’t add /sbin and /usr/sbin to the back of the path, after any other user-defined path entries which would override it. Supposedly “dpkg ensures that the PATH is set to a reasonable value” but it’s certainly failing in this case. No harm is done- only benefit. With the new ‘su’ as people get used to it, we’re going to see lots of failures. Failures that could incorrectly configure packages and lead to more bugs due to configuration issues. Bugs like this one ( https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=926449 )
> Upgrading from 3.4.4 to 3.4.5-1, I see the following messages after a 'su' > to root Preconfiguring packages ... > Can't exec "postconf": No such file or directory at > /tmp/postfix.config.swGX60 line 220, <STDIN> line 14. Can't exec > "postconf": No such file or directory at /tmp/postfix.config.swGX60 line > 284, <STDIN> line 16. Can't exec "postconf": No such file or directory at > /tmp/postfix.config.swGX60 line 386, <STDIN> line 21. Scott Kitterman’s comment when this bug was reported I think accurately points to this bug (thank you Scott) “If there is a bug here, it's probably in dpkg. I think that the postfix package is aligned to policy and Debian best practices. See below. Please review and consider if this should be reassigned. Here's an extract from policy 6.1: Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally have a path prepended to them. Before installation is started, the package management system checks to see if the programs ldconfig, start-stop-daemon, and update-rc.d can be found via the PATH environment variable. Those programs, and any other program that one would expect to be in the PATH, should thus be invoked without an absolute pathname. Maintainer scripts should also not reset the PATH, though they might choose to modify it by prepending or appending package-specific directories. These considerations really apply to all shell scripts. There is a related lintian [1] check which says, in part: Programs called from maintainer scripts normally should not have a path prepended. dpkg ensures that the PATH is set to a reasonable value, and prepending a path may prevent the local administrator from using a replacement version of a command for some local reason. [1] https://lintian.debian.org/tags/command-with-path-in-maintainer-script.html
