Debian Bug report logs - #771956
dpkg: overwrites "alternatives" symlinks without warning

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Roland R." <raphoplex@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: dpkg: The alternatives system don't list created symlinks in /var/lib/dpkg/info

Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 20:32:47 +0100

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.16.15
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainers of dpkg,

one of the great freatures of dpkg is that every file and symlink created is listed in /var/lib/dpkg/info/<packagename>.list .
This allows e.g. to check if the system is "clean" by comparing all files to their checksums (using debsums) and by checking that there are no other files and symlinks than those listed in /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list .
Unfortunately, although update-alternatives is a part of the dpkg package, it seems to have been forgotten to list the created symlinks in /var/lib/dpkg/info/alternatives.list .
It would be great if someone could fix this.

Sincerly,
Roland R.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.7
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  libbz2-1.0   1.0.6-4
ii  libc6        2.13-38+deb7u6
ii  liblzma5     5.1.1alpha+20120614-2
ii  libselinux1  2.1.9-5
ii  tar          1.26+dfsg-0.1
ii  zlib1g       1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

dpkg recommends no packages.

Versions of packages dpkg suggests:
ii  apt  0.9.7.9+deb7u6

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 771956@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>

To: "Roland R." <raphoplex@gmail.com>, 771956@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#771956: dpkg: The alternatives system don't list created symlinks in /var/lib/dpkg/info

Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 09:50:36 +0100

Control: forcemerge 25759 -1

On Wed, 2014-12-03 at 20:32:47 +0100, Roland R. wrote:
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.16.15
> Severity: normal

> one of the great freatures of dpkg is that every file and symlink
> created is listed in /var/lib/dpkg/info/<packagename>.list .

> This allows e.g. to check if the system is "clean" by comparing all
> files to their checksums (using debsums) and by checking that there are
> no other files and symlinks than those listed in /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list .
> Unfortunately, although update-alternatives is a part of the dpkg package,
> it seems to have been forgotten to list the created symlinks in
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/alternatives.list .

This has been reported several times, merging. The problem is that
dpkg does not have a generic way to register files not shipped in a
binary package. But even then, u-a would need to know how to register
them which would require tigher integration, wich conflicts with me
wanting to keep it generic and somewhat distribution neutral. I guess
possibly adding hook support would do though.

Thanks,
Guillem

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