[Bug 319477] Re: base-files postinstall recurses into /var

[Colin Watson]

** Changed in: base-files (Ubuntu)
     Assignee: Colin Watson (cjwatson) => (unassigned)

** Changed in: base-files (Ubuntu)
       Status: Incomplete => Confirmed

** Changed in: base-files (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Medium

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to base-files in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/319477

Title:
  base-files postinstall recurses into /var

Status in “base-files” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: base-files

  Ubuntu 8.04.2
  base-files 4.0.1ubuntu5.8.04.4

  moriot at xxxxxx:~$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall (or install, or upgrade) base-files
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree
  Reading state information... Done
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 59 not upgraded.
  1 not fully installed or removed.
  After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
  Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
  Setting up base-files (4.0.1ubuntu5.8.04.4) ...

  lsof -p `pidof find` shows working directory and open directory
  handles under /var (/var/volumes/... which I think is site-specific).

  This may seem related to 297595, 306973 but both of these say that
  find is searching through /etc. However I cannot find any links under
  my /etc pointing to directories in /var (searched using find -type l |
  xargs namei | grep var), only files.

  The affected machine's /var/volumes contains 250GB of user data --
  other installations may have far more. The argument that it's better
  to be thorough because this upgrade only happens once, seems a bit out
  of balance here. Also, base-files has no business changing permissions
  in arbitrary directories containing user data.

  At least there should be a message printed at the start of postinst
  stating that this upgrade could take a while...

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/319477/+subscriptions