>>>>> Andrei Popescu <andreimpope...@gmail.com> writes: >>>>> On Vi, 16 sep 11, 00:48:25, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
[Cc: debian-devel@, for this discussion fits there better.] >> I wonder if there should be a separate mailing list to Cc: such bug >> reports. (debian-dependency-inquisitors@, perhaps?) > I don't think dependencies need any special handling compared to > other bug reports. In cases where you don't agree with the resolution > you can discuss the issue - together with the maintainer - on > debian-devel. Perhaps. >> I seem to remember that there was a longstanding issue with Depends: >> logrotate. Of course, no package should ever be “rendered unusable” >> (which, AIUI, is the very essense of Depends:) should logrotate not >> be installed! To quote the policy: --cut: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html -- The Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of functionality. --cut: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html -- Cf.: --cut: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html -- Recommends This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency. The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations. --cut: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html -- >> Yet, there seem to be something like 45 packages that Depends: on it >> as per Debian Wheezy. > Could you provide concrete examples? Sure. $ apt-cache show $(apt-cache rdepends logrotate | sed -e '/^ /!d; s///') \ | grep-dctrl -s Package -F Depends --regex --pattern=logrotate \ | LC_ALL=C sort -u \ | sed -e '/^Package: /!d; s///' | fmt -w72 aolserver4-daemon argus-server atop battery-stats boa cherokee clamav-base clamav-freshclam clamav-milter deejayd deejayd-webui interchange ippl knockd leafnode libvirt-bin lusca mailman mgetty muddleftpd net-acct ninja prayer privoxy pyca pygopherd quagga rabbitmq-server rsnapshot sipwitch sks slbackup snort snort-mysql snort-pgsql squid squid3 tinyproxy twatch uucp $ > I assume packages not logging to syslog do need some rotation of > their logs, otherwise they could render systems unusable by filling > up the drive. The use of logrotate doesn't prevent it; and the lack of such use doesn't force it, either. In particular, when the package is installed into a chroot (say, for testing), the Cron daemon is typically not run from there. Thus, chroot'ed logrotate won't ever be run, and won't have any effect on the free filesystem space. Also, certain server packages may be run both privileged (as a system service) and unprivileged (for just the invoking user.) (Think of, e. g., Rsync, but INN also can be configured in such a way.) There, logrotate is ineffective just as well, as the packaged configuration files certainly won't reference the filenames used by the particular user. Note that there's a reasonable amount of packages which either Recommends: or Suggest: logrotate instead: $ apt-cache show $(apt-cache rdepends logrotate | sed -e '/^ /!d; s///') \ | grep-dctrl -s Package --not -F Depends --regex --pattern=logrotate \ | LC_ALL=C sort -u \ | sed -e '/^Package: /!d; s///' | fmt -w72 atftpd bdii cacti cricket cron ctdb distributed-net dsyslog heartbeat heimdal-kdc horde3 kdm ldirectord liquidsoap masqmail mini-buildd-bld mini-buildd-rep pawserv rsyslog samba selinux-policy-default selinux-policy-mls sendmail-base sugarplum super sympa syslog-ng thttpd tor vsftpd wu-ftpd wwwoffle xinetd xtel xtide zabbix-agent zabbix-proxy-mysql zabbix-proxy-pgsql zabbix-proxy-sqlite3 zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-server-pgsql $ Moreover, there's at least the dpkg package which, while providing logrotate configuration files, doesn't mention logrotate among its dependencies at all. It's therefore my long-standing opinion that the dependency on logrotate should be downgraded to Recommends:, unless, of course, postinst or prerm do actually use anything provided by the logrotate package (which seems to me unlikely.) -- FSF associate member #7257 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/867h55p0r3.fsf...@gray.siamics.net