transmission-daemon overwrites settings.json symlink

[Krzysztof Klimonda]

Binary package hint: transmission

Upstream, in order to fix http://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/2505,
has changed the way that settings.json file is saved (see
http://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3172 for details) and now it
overwrites /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json symlink with
the real file on both receiving HUP signal and exiting. After
transmission-daemon is restarted users' changes made
to /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json are going to be silently
ignored.

There are three possible fixes proposed in the upstream ticket, the last
one does look like the safest route.

Reporting on Launchpad to keep track of it for the possible SRU.

TEST CASE:
1) With transmission-daemon 1.92-0ubuntu2 installed do:
    - make sure that daemon is running (sudo service transmission-daemon restart)
    - run sudo killall -HUP transmission-daemon
    - /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json should become a normal file and not a symlink
2) purge package transmission-daemon (it will remove user configuration but there is no safe way of checking whether /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json contains any changes made by user himself that are not in /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json)
3) install transmission-daemon 1.93-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
    - run sudo killall -HUP transmission-daemon
    - make sure that /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json is a symlink to /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json and there are no errors related to transmission-deamon permission problems in /var/log/syslog

[Krzysztof Klimonda (kklimonda)]

Raising Importance as the bug is affecting all transmission-daemon users. I'd say it's a perfect candidate for the SRU if we can get a clear fix.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package transmission - 1.93-2ubuntu1

---------------
transmission (1.93-2ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable (LP: #574435), remaining changes:
    - debian/control:
      + Added liblaunchpad-integration-dev and lsb-release to Build-Depends
    - debian/rules:
      + create a po template during package build.
    - debian/patches/01_lpi.patch:
      + integrate transmission with launchpad
    - debian/patches/20_add_x-ubuntu-gettext-domain.diff:
      + add x-ubuntu-gettext-domain to .desktop file.
    - debian/control, debian/rules:
      + build transmission gtk+ client with both gconf and libcanberra support.
    - debian/patches/dont_build_libevent.patch:
      + disable libevent in configure.ac and Makefile.am because we use autotools
        to regenerate build files.
    - debian/patches/updateminiupnpcstrings_double_escape_slash.patch:
      + Deleted as the bug is fixed upstream
  * Fixes bugs:
    - Fix a bug in transmission-daemon that caused it to overwrite symlink to
      settings.json and in the result ignore changes made to
      /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json (LP: #571097)
    - A fix for LP #542194 disabled rpc in transmission-daemon by default. Make
      it enabled for new users (LP: #571739)
  * Refreshed 99_autoreconf.patch
 -- Krzysztof Klimonda <email address hidden> Sun, 16 May 2010 21:20:39 +0200

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Accepted transmission into lucid-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Lacrocivious Acrophosist (altbinspam)]

transmission-cli and transmission-deamon 1.93 from -Proposed appear to have fixed this problem.

# egrep "(password|username)" /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
     "proxy-auth-password": "",
     "proxy-auth-username": "",
     "rpc-password": "{6ac7........................................GxD/",
     "rpc-username": "transmission",

No permissions problems observed in /var/log/syslog

/var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json is a true symlink to /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package transmission - 1.93-0ubuntu0.10.04.1

---------------
transmission (1.93-0ubuntu0.10.04.1) lucid-proposed; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable (LP: #574435), fixes bugs:
  * debian/patches/follow_symlinks.patch
    - Fix a bug in transmission-daemon that caused it to overwrite symlink to
      settings.json and in the result ignore changes made to
      /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json (LP: #571097)
  * debian/patches/enable_rpc_by_default.patch
    - A fix for LP #542194 disabled rpc in transmission-daemon by default. Make
      it enabled for new users (LP: #571739)
  * debian/transmission-daemon.{postinst,postrm}:
    - Fix permissions for /etc/transmission-daemon/ directory.
  * Refreshed 99_autoreconf.patch
 -- Krzysztof Klimonda <email address hidden> Sun, 16 May 2010 20:32:16 +0200