[mythtv] mythtv-database deb installation on woody not faring well

Matt Zimmerman mdz at debian.org
Thu Jul 17 17:42:24 EDT 2003


On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 12:52:14AM -0500, Jeff wrote:

> So in the end, my initial installation failed due to user error. No
> problem I thought, I'll purge all the packages, start over, and everything
> will be good. I purge packages, and re-install with DEBIAN_PRIORITY set to
> low so I can answer all the questions properly. I take the default on all
> questions, including the one asking for mysql's root password, but for
> whatever reason, the dialog is overridden by the entry in config.dat, and
> the mythtv-database package fails to install.
> 
> Once I figured out that the install was using a non-empty root password, 
> (thanks to Matt and his suggestion to use "export 
> DEBCONF_DEBUG=developer") I was able to start rgreping the filesystem to 
> hunt down where the invalid password was being stored. Now that I knew 
> where that password was stored (in /var/cache/debconf/config.dat), 
> removing the offending password allowed a final re-installtion to 
> proceed without issue.

OK, so here are the problems I see:

- It is impossible to tell at the debconf password prompt whether there is a
  default being supplied (the box is always empty).  You thought that you
  were leaving the box empty, but you were actually accepting the default
  which you supplied last time.  I will raise this issue with the debconf
  maintainer.

- It sounds like for some reason the debconf answers were cached after you
  purged the package.  This should not happen, and as far as I can tell, the
  package is doing the right thing.  Are you certain that you _purged_
  mythtv-database, and did not simply remove it?

- Passwords should never go in config.dat, which is world-readable.  They
  are supposed to be written separately, in passwords.dat.  I have checked
  my system, and there are no passwords in config.dat.  What version of
  debconf do you have installed?

-- 
 - mdz


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