[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#659451: initscripts wants to assume UTC=yes in /etc/default/rcS

[Roger Leigh]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 10:29:02AM +0100, Anton Eliasson wrote:
> In the latest update, apt asked me if I wanted to overwrite my
> /etc/default/rcS
> with the one initscripts now provides. The only modification was to change
> UTC=no to UTC=yes (to assume that the BIOS clock is set to universal time).
> Since I am dual booting with Windows my clock is set to local time so I
> rejected this change. However, the change should never have been suggested,
> since this setting was configured during the Debian installation.

This is related to the recent change to use ucf to manage the
configuration of /etc/default/rcS.

The question I would really like answered in order to fix this is
which settings in /etc/default/rcS should never, ever be altered
after initial installation?

TMPTIME=0
SULOGIN=no
DELAYLOGIN=no
UTC=yes
VERBOSE=no
FSCKFIX=no
RAMLOCK=yes
RAMSHM=yes
RAMTMP=yes

Of these, I can only see UTC as being essential to never alter
following the installation.  The others are regular values which
could be in a regular dpkg conffile, unless there are good reasons
for them not to be.  E.g. RAM*, VERBOSE, *LOGIN can be changed to
suit the admin at any time, and the same applies to TMPTIME and
FSCKFIX AFAICS.

Assuming that only UTC is "special", I'd like to propose the
following:
- create /etc/default/hwclock; this will contain UTC=
- migrate the existing UTC= setting to /etc/default/hwclock
  in the preinst
- provide /etc/default/rcS as a dpkg conffile; drop ucf support

Is this a reasonable strategy, or am I missing any other
variables in rcS which should also be treated as "special"?


Regards,
Roger

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