Bug#913078: Please warn if PIDFile in a .service unit contains /var/run

[Michael Biebl]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.111
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

debian introduced /run a couple of releases ago and nowadays /var/run is
merely a symlink pointing to /run.
I would consider it best practice nowadays that packages use /run
directly instead of /var/run and would therefor like to see a check
added to lintian which warns if it finds PIDFile=/var/run in a systemd
.service file. Lintian should suggest that /run should be used directly
instead.
As a related data point: Since debhelper compat level 11, runstatedir
defaults to /run

There are quite packages which still use /var/run [1], and while
discussing this on #debian-systemd it was suggested that this warning
should only be prio pedantic or at most info for the time being.

Thanks for considering,
Michael

https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=PIDFile%3D%2Fvar%2Frun&perpkg=1

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (200, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils                       2.31.1-7
ii  bzip2                          1.0.6-9
ii  diffstat                       1.61-1+b1
ii  dpkg                           1.19.2+test3
ii  file                           1:5.34-2
ii  gettext                        0.19.8.1-8
ii  intltool-debian                0.35.0+20060710.4
ii  libapt-pkg-perl                0.1.34+b1
ii  libarchive-zip-perl            1.64-1
ii  libcgi-pm-perl                 4.40-1
ii  libclass-accessor-perl         0.51-1
ii  libclone-perl                  0.41-1+b1
ii  libdigest-sha-perl             6.02-1+b1
ii  libdpkg-perl                   1.19.2
ii  libemail-valid-perl            1.202-1
ii  libfile-basedir-perl           0.08-1
ii  libipc-run-perl                20180523.0-1
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl         0.416-1+b4
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-13
ii  libtext-levenshtein-perl       0.13-1
ii  libtimedate-perl               2.3000-2
ii  liburi-perl                    1.74-1
ii  libxml-simple-perl             2.25-1
ii  libyaml-libyaml-perl           0.74+repack-1+b1
ii  man-db                         2.8.4-3
ii  patchutils                     0.3.4-2
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-perl]      5.28.0-3
ii  t1utils                        1.41-2
ii  xz-utils                       5.2.2-1.3

Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii  libperlio-gzip-perl  0.19-1+b5

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn  binutils-multiarch     <none>
ii  dpkg-dev               1.19.2
ii  libhtml-parser-perl    3.72-3+b3
ii  libtext-template-perl  1.53-1

-- no debconf information