[debian-mysql] Bug#992560: mariadb-client-core-10.5: erases mysql client command history

[Jan Ingvoldstad]

Package: mariadb-client-core-10.5
Version: 1:10.5.11-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

After upgrading from Debian buster to bullseye, and running the mysql command line client for the first time, the command line history is wiped, leaving a .mysql_history devoid of entries.

This is rather inconvenient, particularly in multi-user environments, where multiple .mysql_history files must be recovered from backups.

The bug seems to be related to the regression from GNU readline to BSD EditLine as the linked command line/history manager library. This regression is not apparent in upstream, at least as they package mariadb-client-core-10.5 for buster (versions up to and including: 1:10.5.12+maria~buster).

As far as I can tell, there are two apparent fixes, one apparently technically (if not policy-wise) easy, the other rather labor intensive.

Easy fix: revert the regression from readline to EditLine, so that the client library uses readline, as upstream does.

More labor intensive fix:

1) Prompt the user upon first use of the command for how to handle the situation.

2) Provide conversion for the command line history from readline format to the current EditLine format, whatever that may be.

3) Automatically back up the command line history when the user chooses to start with a fresh history file.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.0
  APT prefers stable-security
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages mariadb-client-core-10.5 depends on:
ii  libc6           2.31-13
ii  libedit2        3.1-20191231-2+b1
ii  libmariadb3     1:10.5.11-1
ii  libncurses6     6.2+20201114-2
ii  libssl1.1       1.1.1k-1
ii  libstdc++6      10.2.1-6
ii  libtinfo6       6.2+20201114-2
ii  mariadb-common  1:10.5.11-1
ii  zlib1g          1:1.2.11.dfsg-2

mariadb-client-core-10.5 recommends no packages.

mariadb-client-core-10.5 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information