[Bug 1000298] Re: /etc/motd.tail is silently removed on upgrade of initscripts

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: sysvinit (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1000298

Title:
  /etc/motd.tail is silently removed on upgrade of initscripts

Status in “sysvinit” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  /etc/motd.tail is always removed on upgrade of initscripts. I
  encountered this problem on upgrading my Ubuntu server from 10.04 to
  12.04.

  This problem is caused by misuse of fgrep in initscripts.postinst:

   ...
          help_text=$(/etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text 2>/dev/null || true)
          if [ -n "$help_text" ] && fgrep -q "$help_text" /etc/motd.tail
          then
                  rm -f /etc/motd.tail
   ...

  /etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text *outputs a single newline* before the
  line containing "Documents: https://help.ubuntu.com/". On the other
  hands, man grep reads:

         -F, --fixed-strings
                Interpret PATTERN as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines, any of which is to be matched.  (-F is specified by POSIX.)

  Then this fgrep call always succeeds and /etc/motd.tail is removed.

  I attached a patch to solve this issue.

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