Bug#919509: systemd packaging does not touch /var/run/reboot-required

[Karl O. Pinc]

Package: systemd
Version: 232-25+deb9u8
Severity: normal

Hi,

systemd security updates to stable
systemd (232-25+deb9u8) stretch-security; urgency=high
systemd (232-25+deb9u7) stretch-security; urgency=high
required reboot to take effect, but /var/run/reboot-required
was not `touch`ed.  Therefore the unattended-upgrades
package did not notify the user that a reboot is required.
(There were related upgrades to udev and other packages.)

There are probably many systems which installed the
upgrade automatically but did not reboot and so the
patch did not take effect.

"The Internet" says that it is the postinst script which
should touch /var/run/reboot-required.

There is also a (new) bug against debian-policy because
policy does not mention the mechanism:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=919507

See also:
https://sources.debian.org/src/unattended-upgrades/1.9/unattended-upgrade/#L83

Regards,
Karl

-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.6
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages systemd depends on:
ii  adduser         3.115
ii  libacl1         2.2.52-3+b1
ii  libapparmor1    2.11.0-3+deb9u2
ii  libaudit1       1:2.6.7-2
ii  libblkid1       2.29.2-1+deb9u1
ii  libc6           2.24-11+deb9u3
ii  libcap2         1:2.25-1
ii  libcryptsetup4  2:1.7.3-4
ii  libgcrypt20     1.7.6-2+deb9u3
ii  libgpg-error0   1.26-2
ii  libidn11        1.33-1
ii  libip4tc0       1.6.0+snapshot20161117-6
ii  libkmod2        23-2
ii  liblz4-1        0.0~r131-2+b1
ii  liblzma5        5.2.2-1.2+b1
ii  libmount1       2.29.2-1+deb9u1
ii  libpam0g        1.1.8-3.6
ii  libseccomp2     2.3.1-2.1+deb9u1
ii  libselinux1     2.6-3+b3
ii  libsystemd0     232-25+deb9u8
ii  mount           2.29.2-1+deb9u1
ii  procps          2:3.3.12-3+deb9u1
ii  util-linux      2.29.2-1+deb9u1

Versions of packages systemd recommends:
ii  dbus            1.10.26-0+deb9u1
ii  libpam-systemd  232-25+deb9u8

Versions of packages systemd suggests:
ii  policykit-1        0.105-18+deb9u1
pn  systemd-container  <none>
pn  systemd-ui         <none>

Versions of packages systemd is related to:
pn  dracut           <none>
ii  initramfs-tools  0.130
ii  udev             232-25+deb9u8

-- no debconf information