On 00-09-29 Lindsay Haisley wrote: > Thus spake Christian Kurz on Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 03:43:49PM CDT > > > My original post specified Debian 2.2. The numerals got stripped > > > somewhere along the way. Sorry if the usage on this field was out > > > of spec. I wasn't sure what to specify since I don't know what > > > package did the deed. > > > > Then you can stil assign it to the package general so that people > > get notified and give as version-numer 2.2.
> Would you please see to it that the right information gets to whoever needs > to see it, whether or not this was done correctly? If you want people to This information is just going to the right people. > follow this format for non-specific problem reporting then it should be > explained on <http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting>. It's not. And where's there written that you should use the package unknown if you had problems with the upgrade in general? > > > I updated packages using apt from within dselect, auto-installing > > > everything that needed to be updated via transfers from the debian > > > ftp site. Lots of package install scripts asked a lot of > > > questions, as usual, and I kept a record on another virtual > > > terminal of those messages which appeared to be > > > > Apperead? How can you say if something appers to be important or > > not? I see no one do this automatically. This has always to be done > > by manual reading. > I read with my eyes, not by hand :) Every time I was presented with a > notice which required my attention and some sort of input or keypress to > continue I read it thoroughly. If it indicated some action that needed to Well, I wonder then how you run into this situation, because as I said now for the third time, your passwd gets only changed, when you as the admin decide to do so. > > > mission-critical to the upgrade. At no point do I remember being > > > asked if I wanted to overwrite any information in /etc/passwd. I > > > know that the mysql > > > > Look at the code of base-passwd.postinst and see what's done in it. > > You will also notice that update-passwd gets only executed if the > > admin who does the upgrade says y at the prompt. Otherwise no > > changes will be done. > It looks as though this is the guilty party! > System entries (or any other entries) in /etc/passwd which do not relate to > installed packages or which are not fundamental to the operation of the OS > should never be mucked with by >any< script of this nature. The /etc/passwd How often should I write you again, that the script update-passwd get's _ONLY_ executed, when _YOU_ as the admin, decide to do so. While upgrading passwd you will get the following message: |Checking if your system passwd, shadow and group files are correct... | |It looks like I need to make some changes to your system. Without those |changes some packages might not work correctly. The list of changes are |listed above. For more documentation on the Debian account policies |please read /usr/share/doc/base-passwd/README. | |Should I update your system? [Y/n] If you enter y at this prompt, update-passwd will change the passwd as _you_ told it to do this. If you enter n at this prompt, it will leave you passwd alone and print the following message: |Okay, I will not update your system. If you want to make this update later |please check the update-passwd utility. update-passwd doesn't change the passwd otherwise, only if _you_ call it _manually_ from the command line and then you should have read the manpage before. > fashion. Although I may have run the update script, it's very broken for it > to "fix" this entry, especially considering that Debian doesn't even offer a > Majordomo package! I would suggest that the entry for majordomo be striken Then submit a bug for the package so that the master-file for it gets changed but don't blame debian for this, because _you_ told the script to update/change your passwd. > > > circulstances should any package, update-passwd or any other, muck with > > > passwd file entries which are unrelated to the system or to currently > > > installed packages. Period! While Debian may advise the use of a certain > > > > When do you understand the update-passwd gets _only_ executed when _you_ > > as the admin make this decision and either call it from the commandline > > or say y in the postinst-script? > I make the decision to drive my car, too, but I don't expect it to drive me > into a utility pole unless I very explicitly steer it in that direction. > What the update script did was broken, whatever my answer may have been to > the install question. It was not broken! Read above what I wrote about it. > > > A search through the Debian package list in dselect for > > > "majordomo" and for the partial words "major" and "domo" turns up > > > nothing, and I just tried it > > > > Hm, then the packages has not only been removed in woody, but also > > potato. If you upgraded, you had slink and slink contained a > > majordomo-package, which you will find in the package list of slink, > > if they didn't remove it there also. > This is all the more reason to remove the majordomo entry from > passwd.master. Then submit a matching bug report. > Majordomo was in non-free in hamm. I gave away my slink disks so I don't > know about that. It was probably removed due to security concerns, of which > there are a few, or possibly becuase of its license. Its proper use with It was not removed for security concerns, only due to some license problems which have first been notified at this time. > > How can you say that you saw no problems after the upgrade, > > when a user notices after a day that the mailserver is broken? > The mail server was NOT broken, nor was my qmail list server (ezmlm). The > majordomo list server >was< broken (mail server != list server). I said And this can't be noticed after an upgrade? > > Please > > get your facts right, before you blame debian for things that debian is > > not responsible for. > Excuse me? Let me repeat what I said. NO package or update script has any > business changing entries in /etc/passwd which do not relate to the > functionality of the OS or of installed packages, ESPECIALLY if such an > entry relates to a subsystem which isn't even supported or offered as > package by Debian. > This is a big, black, Debian bug. Deal with it, Please! When do you understand, that there's no blackbox and there's a standard passwd for debian-systems that normally doesn'get changed by the admin, only with some new users added or removed. And the update-passwd script only makes it changes to the passwd to make it identically with the debian-standard, if you as the admin request that. There's no blackbox. This is fully up to the admin of the box to decide what he wants to do with the passwd. And I know about this, because I also run a modified passwd here and would have noticed such a behaviour earlier. And I notified no such behaviuour here, because I decided that update-passwd should never run here (because I don't call it manually or enter y at the prompt mentioned above). Ciao Christian -- Debian Developer and Quality Assurance Team Member 1024/26CC7853 31E6 A8CA 68FC 284F 7D16 63EC A9E6 67FF 26CC 7853
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