[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#502263: Bug#502263: mailman: policy violation (9.1.1): writes to /usr when config changes

[Thijs Kinkhorst]

severity 502263 important
thanks

Hi Helmut,

On Wed, October 15, 2008 23:57, Helmut Grohne wrote:
>> I welcome input on this issue from people with more deep knowledge than
>>  myself about these Python cached files, and how we could best address
>> it in this case. If there's a straightforward solution I think we can
>> apply it for lenny.
>
> The simplest solution might actually be to take the approach
> python-support uses.
>
> 1) The .py files stay where they are.
> 2) They are symlinked to a directory hierarchy within /var/lib. (This
> means directories are copied and files are symlinked.)
> 3) The .pyc files
> will get created on /var.
> 4) The module path has to be adapted from
> /usr/lib/mailman to something
> on /var. Therefore /usr/lib/mailman/bin/paths.py should be adapted.

Right. I'm afraid that I don't think this juggling with symlinks and
changing the module path at the verge of Lenny's release is a wise thing
to do.

Would this really solve the root cause? It seems quite an extensive
workaround for the problem that Python saves caching data right next to
the original data. Wouldn't it be better configure Python to save that
under /var/cache, than to implement magic in every application?

>> However I indeed don't think this should be release critical, as you
>> say, it doesn't break when writing fails. It is an inconvenience with
>> e.g. tripwire, but that is resolvable within the context of that
>> application. So I would classify it as an 'important' issue myself.
>>
>
> ACK.

Downgrading the severity.


Thijs