Bug#745876: Please create /etc/machine-id if it does not exist

[Santiago Vila]

On Sat, 26 Apr 2014, Martin Pitt wrote:

> Santiago Vila [2014-04-26 12:16 +0200]:
> > IMHO, such bug is ridiculous: On systems where systemd is the init
> > manager, systemd becomes essential and you simply *don't* remove it!
> 
> On Debian we support multiple init systems, so in theory a user could
> install sysvinit or upstart or openrc etc., and afterwards purge
> systemd. In that case I think it would be wrong to remove
> /etc/machine-id, as on the next installation you would get a new one
> and change the machine's ID.

Well, it could be argued that if you wanted to keep the machine ID,
you would just remove (not purge) systemd the first time.

For now, /etc/machine-id is a configuration (or state) file for the
systemd package. Documentation about machine-id even says that
removing the file on reboots is mostly harmless (you could have a
different machine-id every time the machine boots and nothing bad
would happen).

So, my recommendation (if you don't just ignore piuparts report)
is that you actually remove it at purge.

The base-files package is Essential: yes, and it is currently
Architecture: any, but that's mainly a way to make /etc/issue to be
pretty looking (it says "Linux" only on Linux architectures). For all
other purposes I would like to keep the base-files package as much
"Architecture: all" as we can (both regarding .deb contents and also
behaviour), and this file is not needed on every architecture yet.

(Moreover, there are people who dislike systemd with a passion. Forcing
systemd files on machines not needing it is not going to be good
publicity for systemd).

On the other hand, if you can show me another init system (which is
not systemd) also using /etc/machine-id, we can reconsider about this.

Thanks.