[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#983251: passwd is missing dependencies

[Tim Woodall]

On Sun, 21 Feb 2021, Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:

> * Tim Woodall <debianbugs at woodall.me.uk> [210221 15:28]:
>> I am unsure how debootstrap avoids the first problem - It could just be
>> down to luck that debootstrap configures base-passwd before passwd. grep
>> is Priority: required and Essential: yes so it could be argued that it
>> should be unpacked before attempting to configure passwd and so this
>> dependency is not required.
>
> That is exactly the case. Both grep and base-passwd are Essential:
> yes, so they _must_ function already (even when not configured yet).
>
> Adding them to Depends: could be argued to be a bug.
>

The fundamental problem is actually that base-passwd is marked as
Essential but passwd required it to have run its postinst script.

Therefore the issue seems to be that base-passwd shouldn't be essential
at all.