Ubuntu
dbus package

  1. Bug #1508697
  2. Comment #4

Comment 4 for bug 1508697

Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote : Re: Wily: /var/lib/dbus/machine-id is symlink on desktop, file on server

@Jason: What seb128 was asking is that you said "related issue is bug 1508697", but 1508697 is *this* bug. I. e comment #1 refers to itself.

I haven't investigated this much yet, but it seems two things are competing here:

  * /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/dbus.conf will create the /var/lib/dbus/machine-id symlink to /etc/machine-id. I. e. this would happen on "first boot" *if* /var/lib/dbus/machine-id does not exist yet. This is what happens if you install from a desktop CD: livecd-rootfs removes machine-id from the image, so the first boot goes through that tmpfiles.d snippet and creates the symlink.

 * If you install server, that actually apt-get installs stuff including dbus. dbus.postinst calls "dbus-uuidgen --ensure" which according to NEWS

     • in "dbus-uuidgen --ensure", try to copy systemd's /etc/machine-id
       to /var/lib/dbus/machine-id instead of generating an entirely new ID
       (fd.o #77941, Simon McVittie)

So I think this fully explains the behaviour. I think what's right here is to change dbus-uuidgen --ensure to symlink /etc/machine-id instead of copying it. Simon, WDYT? After all, tools must already get along with a symlink due to the tmpfiles.d, and we are moving towards directly reading /etc/machine-id anyway, right?