[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#668312: sysv-rc: hidden dotfile in /etc used as state file (/etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering)

[Roger Leigh]

severity 668312 important
thanks

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:27:33PM +0200, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> sysv-rc uses /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering as a flag file, which is
> essentially a state file to know whether to convert to new ordering or
> not.  It should live in /var/lib/sysv-rc or similar instead.
> 
> If this is meant to be a configuration file, it must not be recreated
> after it's deleted.  It should probably also not be a hidden file, since
> there's no good reason for it.

While I agree it's nasty, it's also in at least one, if not two,
stable releases already, and is required to prevent breakage
when switching between legacy and dependency based boot ordering.
I hope it will be possible to remove post-wheezy (this is one
advantage to mandating the use of dependency-based boot--the need
to maintain this is no longer present).

Downgrading to important for the interim, not because it's not
wrong, but because it's been around for a long time, and is already
in stable and oldstable.  It also remains to be determined if it is
safe remove it for wheezy,  It will need a check of which other
packages are also using it, because we deliberately leave it in place
in the postrm.

We can certainly remove /our/ use of .legacy-bootordering in the
postinst (the check for it can be replaced with a shell function
to do the file-rc check).  The main other use of it is for after
we are removed (according the the comments in the maintainer
scripts).


Regards,
Roger

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