[Piuparts-devel] Bug#1092667: piuparts fails on debconf: Package purging left files on system: /var/cache/debconf/tmp.ci/ not owned

[Colin Watson]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 11:41:27AM +0100, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> I was testing a seemingly unrelated package (libzfs6linux in my case, it
> does not depend on debconf) with piuparts and am faced with a failure
> that seems disconnected:
> 
> | 0m12.8s ERROR: FAIL: Package purging left files on system:
> |   /var/cache/debconf/tmp.ci/     not owned
> | 
> | 0m12.8s ERROR: FAIL: Installation and purging test.
> 
> As I understand things, my initial chroot did not contain that empty
> directory. Then my installation+purge test employed debconf in some way
> and debconf left it around due to #1028128. It being left behind feels
> vaguely intentional, but it still confuses piuparts.
> 
> The problem here is that this situation makes unrelated packages fail
> piuparts testing. In principle, that should affect all packages, so it
> would be widely known and making everyones tests fail. Obviously, that's
> not the case, so something about my setup is special. I'm using a chroot
> generated using mmdebstrap rather than debootstrap and that may be the
> thing that's special.
> 
> Either way, I'd appreciate if debconf and piuparts could agree on
> whether /var/cache/debconf/tmp.ci should be left behind.

While there are alternatives, they're somewhat awkward.  I'm inclined to
suggest that "/var/cache/debconf/tmp.ci/" should be added to the default
Settings.ignored_files in piuparts.

-- 
Colin Watson (he/him)                              [cjwatson at debian.org]