[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#652337: initscripts: rcS(5) unclear about default value for RAMTMP

[Sébastien Villemot]

Package: initscripts
Version: 2.88dsf-13.13
Severity: minor
Tags: patch

Dear Maintainer,

The rcS(5) manpage indicates that the default value for RAMTMP is "yes".

But this is misleading: if you do set a value to RAMTMP in
/etc/default/rcS, a "no" value is assumed, as is clear from
/lib/init/vars.sh.

It’s true that on new installs RAMTMP is currently set to "yes" in
/etc/default/rcS (see /usr/share/initscripts/default.rcS and
#630615). But older installations have no value set for RAMTMP, and for
them the default is "no".

In the last analysis this is a semantic issue about what a "default
value" is: is it the value that is used when none is given in the config
file, or is it the value that is set on fresh installs?  For most
software these two are the same, but in this case they are different.

The manpage should therefore be rephrased with something like (long version):

"(defaults to no if RAMTMP is not mentionned in /etc/default/rcS, which
is the case by default on old installations; recent installations will
have a RAMTMP=yes line by default)"

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (600, 'unstable'), (550, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.1.0-1-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages initscripts depends on:
ii  coreutils       8.13-3       
ii  debianutils     4.0.4        
ii  libc6           2.13-21      
ii  lsb-base        3.2-28       
ii  mount           2.19.1-5     
ii  sysv-rc         2.88dsf-13.13
ii  sysvinit-utils  2.88dsf-13.13

Versions of packages initscripts recommends:
ii  e2fsprogs  1.42~WIP-2011-10-16-1
ii  psmisc     22.13-1              

initscripts suggests no packages.

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/default/bootlogd changed:
BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=Yes


-- no debconf information