[Pkg-privacy-maintainers] Bug#1071057: sbws: prompting due to modified conffiles which were not modified by the user: /etc/cron.d/sbws

[Andreas Beckmann]

Package: sbws
Version: 1.9.0-1
Severity: serious
User: debian-qa at lists.debian.org
Usertags: piuparts

Hi,

during a test with piuparts I noticed your package failed the piuparts
upgrade test because dpkg detected a conffile as being modified and then
prompted the user for an action. As there is no user input, this fails.
But this is not the real problem, the real problem is that this prompt
shows up in the first place, as there was nobody modifying this conffile
at all, the package has just been installed and upgraded...

This is a violation of policy 10.7.3, see
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#behavior,
which says "[These scripts handling conffiles] must not ask unnecessary
questions (particularly during upgrades), and must otherwise be good
citizens."

https://wiki.debian.org/DpkgConffileHandling should help with figuring
out how to do this properly.

In https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/08/msg00675.html and
followups it has been agreed that these bugs are to be filed with
severity serious.

>From the attached log (scroll to the bottom...):

  Setting up sbws (1.9.0-1) ...
  
  Configuration file '/etc/cron.d/sbws'
   ==> Deleted (by you or by a script) since installation.
   ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
     What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are:
      Y or I  : install the package maintainer's version
      N or O  : keep your currently-installed version
        D     : show the differences between the versions
        Z     : start a shell to examine the situation
   The default action is to keep your current version.
  *** sbws (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? dpkg: error processing package sbws (--configure):
   end of file on stdin at conffile prompt


cheers,

Andreas
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