[Debconf-devel] Bug#501794: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: --frontend should override DEBIAN_FRONTEND setting from environment

[Andreas Beckmann]

Package: debconf
Version: 1.5.22
Severity: normal
File: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure

Hi,

shouldn't command line settings override the environment?
Probably not only --frontend vs. DEBIAN_FRONTEND, but for other
parameters as well.

I just ran into a problem when I wanted to manually reconfigure a
package in a pbuilder environment (which had
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive set, but I didn't recognize this at
once). Even running
  dpkg-reconfigure --frontend foobar package
just exited with 0. No questions were asked. No way to reconfigure even
debconf. Every option given to --frontend was silently overridden by
DEBIAN_FRONTEND.

These environment variables are also not mentioned in the
dpkg-reconfigure manpage, only in debconf(7) which is in a separate
package debconf-doc.


Andreas

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (300, 'unstable'), (130, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages debconf depends on:
ii  debconf-i18n                  1.5.22     full internationalization support 
ii  perl-base                     5.10.0-15  minimal Perl system

Versions of packages debconf recommends:
ii  apt-utils                     0.7.14+b1  APT utility programs

Versions of packages debconf suggests:
pn  debconf-doc               <none>         (no description available)
ii  debconf-utils             1.5.22         debconf utilities
ii  dialog                    1.1-20080316-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  gnome-utils               2.20.0.1-2     GNOME desktop utilities
ii  libgnome2-perl            1.042-1+b1     Perl interface to the GNOME librar
pn  libnet-ldap-perl          <none>         (no description available)
pn  libqt-perl                <none>         (no description available)
ii  libterm-readline-gnu-perl 1.17a-2+b1     Perl extension for the GNU Readlin
ii  perl                      5.10.0-15      Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  whiptail                  0.52.2-11.3    Displays user-friendly dialog boxe

-- debconf information:
  debconf-apt-progress/title:
  debconf-apt-progress/info:
* debconf/priority: low
  debconf-apt-progress/preparing:
  debconf-apt-progress/media-change:
* debconf/frontend: Dialog