reassign 122038 debian-policy retitle 122038 Use of /var/backups is apparently undocumented thanks
[ Sorry for taking so long to do this reassign ]. On Sat, 1 Dec 2001, Lee Maguire wrote: > Package: base-files > Version: 3.0 > Severity: minor > > debian's use of /var/backups is apparently undocumented > > $ dpkg -S /var/backups > base-files: /var/backups > > The directory /var/backups is included in the package base-files. > > Debian policy makes no reference to this directory. /var/backups is > mentioned in the FHS but only in the context that it may be > "historical and/or local practice". > > Since /var/backups is used by standard packages such as netbase and cron > the suggestion is that the directory is not exclusively intended for local > admin use. But, since it's not part of the FHS, there's no indication > whether use of this directory is "legacy" and therefore discouraged or > encouraged. > > It's not completely clear what the intended use of this directory is > (except related to back-ups, natch.) Current use is currently not > restricted to, say, user-edited configuration files. > > $ grep backups /usr/share/base-passwd/passwd.master > backup:*:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/bin/sh > > The package base-passwd references the directory as the home directory > for the user "backup" suggesting that the directory is intended for > use by a process running as that user, but by default "backups" has > no permission to write to /var/backups . The implicit policy we seem to be following about /var/backups is that packages are allowed to use it for backups of certain important files (since some packages actually do backups there). Additionaly, if you want the user `backup' to do backups on their own then you can change the permissions of the directory, and dpkg will preserve the new permissions on upgrades. I agree that the FHS standard should be more clear about this, so I'm reassigning this report to debian-policy, which is the package containing the FHS standard. I will be happy to implement a change in the default permissions for this directory if it's the consensus of the policy group (but in my opinion, the current permissions are ok). Thanks.
