Bug#403648: [Piuparts-devel] Bug#403648: piuparts: Try unpack, then remove?

[Kurt Roeckx]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 08:03:37PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi Kurt,
> 
> On Monday 18 December 2006 18:35, Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> > I've recently seen a bug where a package is unpacked but not setup, so
> > postinst didn't get run.
> 
> Isn't that the case of a local administrator willingly (or due to a bug in 
> apt/dpkg) choose to change default behaviour of the packaging system? Are 
> there any normal circumstances when the following can happen?

The bug that made me post this is #403641, it took some time to get this.

So, the problem is that because of a failure in some other package, dpkg
didn't completly install everything.  When then trying to remove package
packages that weren't in completly installed, it failed.

> > When trying to remove it, it failed in the postrm, because a file
> > created in the postinst didn't exist.
> 
> See above :)

So, the bug above is actually not what I initially thought.  But I think
that is one way things can break too.

> > It might also find other type of bugs, not sure, but it atleast looks
> > like a useful test.
> 
> What test do you propose exactly / what other bugs do you have in mind? 

Some things I have in mind are:
- postinst gave an error, so it failed to install,
  then you try to remove the package.
- preinst does something, postinst also does something, pre/post-rm
  doesn't clean things up if postinst didn't run.

There might be other various that I can't think of right now.


Kurt