[Debconf-devel] Bug#545324: dovecot: Config mechanism horribly broken

[Charles Plessy]

Le Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 10:28:11AM -0400, Jaldhar H. Vyas a écrit :
> On Sun, 6 Sep 2009, Paul LeoNerd Evans wrote:
> 
> >Package: dovecot
> >Version: 0.99.14-1
> >Severity: important
> >
> >Every time there is the smallest change in upstream config files, the
> >config system gets invoked to ask terminal-based questions on what to
> >do.
> >
> >The "show differences" options spin CPU for a good 30 seconds before
> >eventually they run.
> >
> >The "just give me a shell" option in fact just prints
> > No terminal, and no DISPLAY set, can't fork shell.
> >
> >and is therefore equally useless.
> >
> >I can't even Ctrl-Z the program to fix it myself.
> >
> 
> Is this just happening with dovecot or all apps that ask
> configuration questions?  Because it is actually a package called
> debconf that handles this and it seems to be misconfigured.

Hello,

I just upgraded a system from Lenny to Squeeze, and indeeed, only dovecot
showed this problem.

In particular, while all the other configuration upgrades were made in the
simple text interface (the one that invites to press Y/N/D/Z), only dovecot
triggered a ncurses interface that reproduced the problems described above
(extreme slowness to produce diffs, impossibiltiy to fork a shell).

All in all, it looks more like the source of the problem is ucf rather than
debconf. See in particular http://bugs.debian.org/543367 (duplicated in #574266) 

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan