| Summary: | sys-apps/man-db-2.9.4-r1: /etc/cron.daily/man-db uses su which is not installed | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | Gentoo Linux | Reporter: | Jaak Ristioja <jaak> |
| Component: | Current packages | Assignee: | Gentoo's Team for Core System packages <base-system> |
| Status: | UNCONFIRMED --- | ||
| Severity: | normal | CC: | mjo |
| Priority: | Normal | ||
| Version: | unspecified | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| See Also: | https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=717128 | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Package list: | Runtime testing required: | --- | |
|
Description
Jaak Ristioja
2022-01-28 08:33:53 UTC
This is technically an optional runtime dependency. If you don't use the cron job, you don't need 'su'. Given that most users will have 'su' installed by default, I don't really think we need to do anything here. (In reply to Mike Gilbert from comment #1) > This is technically an optional runtime dependency. If you don't use the > cron job, you don't need 'su'. Yes, but as far as I can tell, man-db seems to enable this by default. At least I can't currently remember opting in, nor having seen any notice about this being optional. Either way, this causes a daily error message in the logs. What is the official suggested way to disable this cronjob and prevent these errors in the logs? > Given that most users will have 'su' installed by default, I don't really > think we need to do anything here. Although I might only represent the small minority of Gentoo users, I'm pleading You to take my case into account. For this to be truly optional, I propose adding a "cron" USE-flag (enabled by default) to install /etc/cron.daily/man-db and pull in the proper runtime dependencies. Thanks! :) (In reply to Jaak Ristioja from comment #2) > What is the official suggested way to disable this cronjob and prevent these > errors in the logs? chmod -x /etc/cron.daily/man-db > For this to be truly optional, I propose adding a "cron" USE-flag (enabled > by default) to install /etc/cron.daily/man-db and pull in the proper runtime > dependencies. That would violate Gentoo policy, and I don't see a strong reason to do so. https://projects.gentoo.org/qa/policy-guide/dependencies.html#pg0001 (In reply to Mike Gilbert from comment #3) > That would violate Gentoo policy, and I don't see a strong reason to do so. Interesting policy. Given there were no good solutions to the underlying problem, I understand that a decision still had to be made. So although I disagree with that outcome, you've made a fair argument. Then how about one of these alternatives: 1) Make man-db unconditionally depend on su, perhaps introducing a virtual/su package. 2) Make /etc/cron.daily/man-db a no-op if su is not installed (i.e. no side-effects AND no error message in the logs) and during installation notify the user to install su to make it work. 3) Make /etc/cron.daily/man-db non-executable by default, and notify the user that installing su and a chmod +x is needed to make it work. man-db upstream now ships a tmpfiles entry, making this,
# Use same perms/settings as the ebuild.
cachedir="/var/cache/man"
if [ ! -d "${cachedir}" ]; then
mkdir -p "${cachedir}"
chown man:man "${cachedir}"
chmod 0755 "${cachedir}"
fi
redundant in the cron job. And once the cron job consists of only,
exec su man -s /bin/sh -c 'nice mandb --quiet' 2>/dev/null
it's rather extravagant to use "su" as root to accomplish it. All cron implementations in the tree support dropping an entry in /etc/cron.d that launches the job directly as the "man" user. That wasn't the case in... 2018? Because vixie-cron. But it is now.
If someone wants to create/test a cron.d file to replace the cron.daily script, that seems like an nice solution to me. I use systemd and don't have a cron daemon installed, so I can't easily test it. Feel free to push it if you have commit access, or provide a patch/github PR otherwise. |
