[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#610185: sysv-rc.postinst needs to provide more balanced description of insserv pros and cons

[Mike Bird]

Package: sysv-rc
Version: 2.88dsf-13.1
Severity: critical
Justification: causes serious data loss


Blindly enabling insserv can result in unbootable systems or systems
which boot but don't start all services.  sysv-rc.postinst currently
states that enabling insserv is "recommended", with no mention of
the possible severe consequences.

This bug is critical rather than grave because the lost data - the
Snn and Knn values - cannot be recovered without restoring a backup.

(In fact it's slightly worse than that - if you merely restore /etc
insserv will eat it again.  You have to use undocumented magic to
prevent this.)

Patch attached.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages sysv-rc depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.36       Debian configuration management sy
ii  insserv                     1.14.0-2     Tool to organize boot sequence usi
ii  sysvinit-utils              2.88dsf-13.1 System-V-like utilities

Versions of packages sysv-rc recommends:
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-23.1   Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

Versions of packages sysv-rc suggests:
pn  bum                           <none>     (no description available)
pn  sysv-rc-conf                  <none>     (no description available)

-- debconf information:
  sysv-rc/unable-to-convert:
* sysv-rc/convert-legacy: true
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: sysv-rc-postinst-clarification.patch
Type: text/x-diff
Size: 1352 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-sysvinit-devel/attachments/20110115/66fef906/attachment.patch>