[pkg-netfilter-team] Bug#913883: usrmerge: can't merge with iptables and ebtables installed

[Laurent Bigonville]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 03:47:09 +0100 Marco d'Itri <md at Linux.IT> wrote:
 > Control: reassign -1 iptables
 > Control: usertags -1 usrmerge
 >
 > On Nov 16, Felipe Sateler <fsateler at debian.org> wrote:
 >
 > > Conversion fails when iptables and ebtables are installed:
 > >
 > > FATAL ERROR:
 > > Both /sbin/ebtables-restore and /usr/sbin/ebtables-restore exist.
 > Because ebtables installs a /sbin/ebtables-restore binary and recently
 > iptables started managing a /usr/sbin/ebtables-restore diversion.
 >
 > > Uninstalling ebtables makes the conversion pass. Installing ebtables
 > > again works without error.
 > But I highly doubt that the ebtables nft emulation would still work at
 > that point.
 >
 > > I have no idea who is at fault here
 > iptables should not have started managing /usr/sbin/ebtables-restore
 > without coordinaation with ebtables (or else conflicting with it).
 > I cannot see how this would not be broken even without a merged-/usr
 > since systems would have two functionally different ebtables-restore
 > programs in different directories.
 >

Quickly looking at this bug (that is more or less a duplicate of 
#912046) it seems (not tested) that the issue could also happen with 
arptables package as the iptables one adds alternatives for the 
arptables executables while the "original" package is not doing the same...

IMVHO iptables package MUST add a breaks for the current version 
arptables and ebtables (and also maybe a provides if the executable 
provides the same interfaces)

And arptables and ebtables should either be kicked out of the archive if 
they are deprecated or must be converted to the alternative system