Bugzilla Bug 64974

/etc/skey/skeykeys is not a configuration file and therefore does not belong
into /etc. "etc-update" should not ask for replacement of this file (by an
empty one).

According to the FHS, /var/lib/skey seems to be the canonical place.

why do you say it is not a configuration file? 

I just checked the fhs, and they have the description "A 'configuration file' is a local file used to control the operation of a program; it must be static and cannot be an executable binary."

skeykeys seems to qualify, it contains configuration data and controls the operation of a program...and is not entirely dissimilar to the passwd and shadow files.

regarding etc-update, i will fix this.

skey-1.1.5-r4 does not include /etc/skey/skeykeys in the package, which fixes
the etc-update issue.

please post more information regarding the FHS issue :)

Regarding comment #1:
I think the key phrase is "it must be static". skeykeys is not static, but it is changed dynamically by users (via skeyinit) and at every login (e.g., via sshd).

The FHS says about /var/lib:
"This hierarchy holds state information pertaining to an application or the system. State information is data that programs modify while they run, and that pertains to one specific host. Users must never need to modify files in /var/lib to configure a package's operation.
State information is generally used to preserve the condition of an application (or a group of inter-related applications) between invocations and between different instances of the same application."
... which seems to fit perfectly for skeykeys.

However, my main point was the etc-update issue and I do not want to open Pandora's box by starting an FHS discussion. ;-)

Regarding comment #3:
As far as I remember, skeyinit requires the skeykeys file to be present, so the ebuild should create it if it does not yet exist.

Another minor problem: skeyinfo still has the wrong pathname in an error message: "skeyinfo: must be root to read /etc/skeykeys". This should be corrected, too.

I don't agree that skeykeys isn't an configuration file, I think that if passwd
and shadow qualify as static, skeykeys certainly does (think chfn, chsh,
passwd, etc).

the package does create /etc/skey/skeykeys, but doesnt include it in the
package.

I've updated skeyinfo to use SKEYKEYS instead of /etc/skey/skeykeys :)

Thanks for the bug reports!