Comment 9 for bug 290661

On Fri, 2008-11-21 at 20:16 +0000, Manny Vindiola wrote:
> Hi,
>
> If you are talking about uml-utilities.init. It does contain code to create the directory if it does not exist.
> 23:UML_DIR=/var/run/uml-utilities
> ...
> 44: # create $UML_DIR if it doesn't exist (RAMRUN=yes in /etc/default/rcS)
> 45: if [ ! -d "$UML_DIR" ] ; then
> 46: mkdir -p $UML_DIR
> 47: chown uml-net:uml-net $UML_DIR
>
> This error occurs specifically in the following instance:
> 1) Package is unpacked
> 2) System is rebooted or /var/run/uml-utilities is removed for some other reason
> 3) Package is configured
>
> The postinst assumes that the directory exists however since /var is
> mounted as a tmpfs if a reboot occurs between unpacking and
> configuration then postinst will halt. I think the fix is in the correct
> place. See attached file for an example.

Usually with the above code in the init script the postinst can just
drop all reference to directories in /var/run.

This will obviously not be the case if the postinst does anything that
requires /var/run before starting the daemon.

> Regarding the patch, I was just following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/PatchSystems.
> Can you clarify when the patch should be applied directly to debain versus when to use a patchsystem?

Anything inside the ./debian/ directory should not be patched in a patch
system, as that obscures the changes, and can lead to build problems.
If the package uses a patch system then use it for any changes outside
of ./debian/

Thanks,

James