Josh Triplett writes: > diff --git a/policy/ch-files.rst b/policy/ch-files.rst > index 48410be..1cdcb18 100644 > --- a/policy/ch-files.rst > +++ b/policy/ch-files.rst > @@ -722,6 +722,15 @@ The name of the files and directories installed by > binary packages > outside the system PATH must be encoded in UTF-8 and should be > restricted to ASCII when it is possible to do so. > > +.. _s-cache: > + > +Cache > +----- > + > +Packages must not install files or directories into ``/var/cache``. The > +system administrator may delete any or all files from this directory at > +any time, or may choose to put it on an ephemeral filesystem. > +
If you allow directories to be removed at any time, it breaks non-root programs using /var/cache: they cannot recreate them. The FHS only allows removing files. Creating the directories in maintainer scripts instead of shipping them in the package makes no difference: if you care about ephemeral filesystems for /var/cache, you have to require something like tmpfiles or CacheDirectory= in .service files to be used (depending on the requirements of the package). So I think we should require such solutions to be used over just forbidding to ship the directory as part of the package. Ansgar
