[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#543813: Bug#543813: VERBOSE=no is incorrectly set when init scripts are run at command line or on upgrade

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Joey Hess wrote:
> I've found several daemons (privoxy, fuse) whose init scripts no longer
> output anything when run. 
> 
> root at gnu:~>/etc/init.d/privoxy stop    
> root at gnu:~>/etc/init.d/privoxy start
> root at gnu:~>
> 
> This is not reassuring behavior; it violates user expectations; it
> violates policy, which says that init scripts should say what they're
> doing; it makes it non-obvious if privoxy started, or why not (messages
> about /etc/default/privoxy are suppressed). And it's based on
> /lib/init/vars.sh setting VERBOSE=no if the kernel was booted with
> quiet, which is the default for all desktop installs for some time now.
> 
> It doesn't seem right for a kernel boot option to affect random
> user-space scripts run at the command line.
> 
> It doesn't seem good that multiple daemons are being modified to use
> this, and that /etc/init.d/skeleton encourages it.
> 
> It's decidedly fishy that userspace overloads the meaning of a kernel boot
> option at all. I don't remember this being the plan when we made desktop
> installs boot with quiet by default.

FWIW, I agree with Joey.

To those who want a system without any initscript messages, the proper
answer is to get scripts to do proper use of /lib/lsb/init-functions, and
have it do something sensible (for all I know, it already does so).


VERBOSE=no should just remove the usual "not doing anything because the
package is not configured" hints, and other inane things of that sort.

Since our own /etc/init.d/skeleton violates policy, IMHO we should be
raising this bug to severity serious, but that would be pointless since the
bug is already in testing and get in the way of other fixes.

As for setting VERBOSE from the kernel command line, I don't have any strong
opinions on that, as long as VERBOSE=no just removes non-important messages.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh