[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#658374: initscripts: Inconsistent use of VERBOSE leads to incorrect information in boot log

[Vincent Lefevre]

Package: initscripts
Version: 2.88dsf-22
Severity: minor

In my /var/log/boot file:

[...]
Thu Feb  2 14:18:50 2012: Starting GNOME Display Manager: gdm3.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:51 2012: Starting anac(h)ronistic cron: anacron.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:52 2012: Starting web server: apache2.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:57 2012: Starting deferred execution scheduler: atd.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:57 2012: Starting atop system monitor: atop.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:57 2012: Starting Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Daemon: avahi-daemon.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:57 2012: Enabling additional executable binary formats: binfmt-support.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:58 2012: Starting bluetooth: bluetoothd.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:59 2012: Starting periodic command scheduler: cron.
Thu Feb  2 14:18:59 2012: Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.
Thu Feb  2 14:19:00 2012: Starting dictionary server: dictd.
Thu Feb  2 14:19:01 2012: Starting MTA: exim4.
Thu Feb  2 14:19:02 2012: Starting mouse interface server: gpm.
Thu Feb  2 14:19:03 2012: Error binding socket: Address family not supported by protocol
Thu Feb  2 14:19:03 2012: Error binding socket: Address family not supported by protocol
Thu Feb  2 14:19:03 2012: Error binding socket: Address family not supported by protocol
Thu Feb  2 14:19:03 2012: Loading cpufreq kernel modules...done (acpi-cpufreq).
[...]

There are 3 error messages

  Error binding socket: Address family not supported by protocol

One would assume that they come from one of the previously started
daemons (gpm, exim4, dictd, etc.). But in fact they come from neither
of them. They come from guacd, for which no "Starting ..." message
has been output due to:

  [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

as recommended by "/etc/init.d/skeleton". This is inconsistent. Either
all the "Starting ..." messages should be displayed by default or none
of them should be displayed. Ditto for the "Stopping ..." messages.

I think that by default, during the boot, the user should be informed
of what is started (and if it failed or not). Thus VERBOSE should be
set to "yes" by default (or the VERBOSE test shouldn't be done for the
"Starting ..." and "Stopping ..." messages).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

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

Versions of packages initscripts depends on:
ii  coreutils       8.13-3
ii  debianutils     4.2.1
ii  libc6           2.13-25
ii  lsb-base        3.2-28.1
ii  mount           2.20.1-1.2
ii  sysv-rc         2.88dsf-22
ii  sysvinit-utils  2.88dsf-22
ii  ucf             3.0025+nmu2

Versions of packages initscripts recommends:
ii  e2fsprogs  1.42-1
ii  psmisc     22.15-2

initscripts suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information