Package: lintian
Version: 2.121.1+nmu1
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: addu...@packages.debian.org
Since adduser 3.122, `adduser --system` automatically defaults to
`--home /nonexistent` if no home directory is specified, so as requested
by the adduser maintainer in #1099086, I tried changing
dbus-system-bus-common to stop explicitly saying `--home /nonexistent`.
I was also asked to stop using --no-create-home, because in adduser 3.130
or later, there is a special case to never create /nonexistent.
However, this results in a lintian tag at error level:
> E: dbus-system-bus-common: maintainer-script-lacks-home-in-adduser "adduser
> --system --quiet --group "$MESSAGEUSER"" [postinst:22]
and the description of that tag gives advice that contradicts what the
adduser maintainer requested:
> Please use adduser --no-create-home --home /nonexistent instead.
I think this tag should probably not be emitted for adduser calls with
--system and no --home, at least not in packages that have a versioned
dependency on adduser (>= 3.130) (but adduser in Debian 12 'bookworm'
is newer than that, and we officially don't support skipping a release,
so the versioned dependency is not strictly necessary for packages
targeting trixie or later).
This means that in Lintian's test suite, adduser calls like this:
> t/recipes/checks/build-systems/debhelper/maintainer-script/token/scripts-maintainer-general/build-spec/debian/postinst:adduser
> --system foo
are actually fine and should not emit this tag:
> t/recipes/checks/scripts/scripts-maintainer-general/eval/hints:scripts-maintainer-general
> (binary): maintainer-script-lacks-home-in-adduser "adduser --system foo"
> [postinst:148]
adduser maintainer cc'd to give the opportunity to confirm or deny my
interpretation being correct.
smcv
