[Pkg-tigervnc-devel] Bug#939055: TigerVNC uses functions that depend on netbase but lacks dependency

[MichaIng]

Package: tigervnc-standalone-server
Version: 1.9.0+dfsg-3

When executing tigervncserver, while the netbase package is not 
installed, it throws the following error message multiple times:
----------
Use of uninitialized value $proto in socket at /usr/bin/tigervncserver
----------

This is due to the failing function getprotobyname() being called, but 
this function depends on files provided by the netbase package.

netbase is a recommendation of perl, but no dependency, thus it is not 
installed when tigervnc-standalone-server or perl is installed with 
--no-install-recommends option or related APT setting.

I am not sure if this is something that should be handled on 
netbase-side, e.g. to print a meaningful error message if this function 
fails, but alternatively tigervnc-standalone-server could add netbase to 
its dependency list.

This does not break the VNC startup or sessions. The originating 
function checks for used TCP ports. Since, if check fails, the script 
would die, I assume it simply always succeeds, if the proto value is 
empty. Rarely an issue, but not desired of course.

This issue is the same with wakeonlan: 
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=928314