Bug 956026

Summary:	acct-user/mail and acct-user/postmaster fails merging in alternate ROOT
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Mark Liman <mark>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	Michał Górny <mgorny>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	eras, floppym
Priority:	Normal	Keywords:	PullRequest
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/42158
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Mark Liman 2025-05-16 13:02:55 UTC

Sorry I am making a bug for two packages in one report, however, it's the same bug so it makes sense, when trying to emerge acct-user/mail or acct-user/postmaster in a crossdev environment they will both fail for the same reason.

acct-user/mail:
chown: invalid group: ‘root:mail’
 * ERROR: acct-user/mail-0-r3::gentoo failed (preinst phase):
 *   fowners failed

acct-user/postmaster:
chown: invalid group: ‘root:mail’                                                                                                                        
 * ERROR: acct-user/postmaster-0-r3::gentoo failed (preinst phase):                                                                                      
 *   fowners failed    

Both packages try to chown /var/spool/mail with root:mail, however, even though they have acct-group/mail in their RDEPEND, it isn't replicated in their BDEPEND meaning it never gets merged on the cross host therefore from it's perspective the group doesn't exist causing chown to fail.

Comment 1 Mike Gilbert gentoo-dev

2025-05-19 16:21:22 UTC

It should probably be in IDEPEND, not BDEPEND.

I also wonder if we should handle this in the eclass instead of individual ebuilds.

Comment 2 Mike Gilbert gentoo-dev

2025-05-19 18:10:30 UTC

Ah, this is an eclass bug that triggered only when ACCT_USER_HOME_OWNER is set in the ebuild.