Debian bug report logs - #1647
dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.

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From chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk!ian Sat Oct 28 19:33:16 1995
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From: Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
In-Reply-To: <3221137@toto.iv>

Some time ago, in response to Bug#1647, I wrote:
> Bill Mitchell writes:
> > I haven't seen this show up on debian-devel.  I think Ian J. has
> > closed this bug report.  Perhops the buglist doesn't forward
> > comments regarding closed bugreports to the list.  Anyhow,
> > here it is.
> 
> I've seen it show up on debian-devel, and I've followed up to it.
> 
> I meant to close the bug report, but didn't do so.  I'm not doing so
> now because it's not clear that there isn't an infelicity in the TeX
> packages' conflicts/dependencies.

Bill: can you see whether the original problem is still there ?

I'm going to reassign this bug to the texbin package in the meantime,
as I don't think there's a problem with dpkg here.

Ian.

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From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Fri Oct 13 05:57:59 1995
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From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.951012200819.2026B-100000@bb29c>
References: <9510121856.AA01458@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
	<Pine.SUN.3.91.951012200819.2026B-100000@bb29c>

Bill Mitchell writes:
> [ renaming of packages, &c ]
>
> In these cases, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to get
> the older, superseded or defunct packages deleted.

There is such a mechanism.  The new packages should declare Conflicts
with the old ones.  The old ones will get deselected and removed.

I have thought about this problem quite carefully, and I think that
the mechanisms in place are up to the job.

Ian.

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From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Thu Oct 12 21:05:35 1995
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 21:05:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
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To: debian-bugs@pixar.com, iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
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In recent postings on this thread, I described a real-life
problem I had, involving a current virtual package named tex
and a previous, now defunct, but still-installed physical
package named tex.

It strikes me that the problem I described previously is just
one special case of a more general problem.

Over the life to date of the debian project, a number of
packages have been renamed.  Mass package renamings involving
several packages in a closely related group have also occured.
Sometimes, reorganization of related packages within a package
suite renders packages defunct and eliminates them without
a direct replacement.  Consider this from the viewpoint of a
user who routinely upgrades his system using dselect.

pkgname1 would be installed, then renamed pkgname2 and
re-installed with that name, then renamed pkgname3 and
re-installed with that name.  Something like this has
happened with shar and sharutils, to name one example.

In a slightly different example, a package suite consisting of
pkg1, pkg2, and pkg3 might be reorganized into four packages
named pkg1, pkg2a, pkg2b, and pkg2c.  Something like this has
happened with the x11 packages, probably with the tex packages
as well, and possibly with other package suites.

In these cases, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to get
the older, superseded or defunct packages deleted.  Many of
the files in the older and newer packages would overlap, and
the current dpkg does expunge files from the list of files
associated with superseded packages in these cases (or so
I believe).

Not all of the files would overlap, however.  If nothing else,
there would be /usr/doc/copyright/package[123], pkg2, and
pkg3 left hanging around from the superseded or defunct but
not removed packages. These packages would also still show
up as installed packages in "dpkg --list" and in dselect,
adding irrelevent and possibly confusing information there
(as the outdated and incorrect information from the defunct
tex package in my status file confused me with an obsolete
maintainer email address for the "tex" maintainer.  Superseded
or defunct packages might in some cases contain other files
besides the copyright files which, in the superseding scheme,
shouldn't exist and might be harmful if present (but still
would exist unless the superseded or defunct packages were
removed).

It seems that there are three places where this problem might
be dealt with:  by a (hopefully) large number of users, by a
smaller number of maintainers, or by a single package admin
tool.  It seems clear to me that the desireable place to deal
with this is in the single package admin tool, but no way that
this might be done without maintainer involvement occurs to me.

Less desireable, but still better than expecting the users
to deal with this, would to push this housekeeping off on
the maintainers (who, after all, cause the problem in the
first place by renaming packages), with soem help from the
package admin tool.  Perhaps a new control file field, something
like "Supersedes:  pkgname [...]".  Multiple "Supersedes" fields
should probably be allowed, in anticipation of the possibility
of long lists of superseded packages.

The present control file "Conflicts" field does provide a
mechanism my which this problem can be dealt with.  However
that'd require user involvement to deal with the conflicts
(possibly improperly) when they could be dealt with by the
maintainer without user involvement using a "Supersedes" field.
Also, the "Conflicts" field has been around while this situation
was developing with existing packages, and the situation has
developed even so.

Comments?  Ian J?

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From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
In-Reply-To: <9510121856.AA01458@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
References: <9510121856.AA01458@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>

Bill Mitchell writes:
> I just dashed off a too-quick reply to this.
> Let me try again, a bit more slowly and verbosely.
> 
> Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk> said:
> > > There may or may not at one time have been a real package named tex.
> > > Regardless, however,  [...]
> > Virtual packages do not have an existence separate from the packages
> > that provide them.  In particular, if you do `dpkg --status' on a
> > virtual package you won't see any email address at all, unless there
> > is a concrete package of the same name.
> 
> The following appears to be the situation:
> 
> 1.  There was once a package named tex.  It contained a copyright file.
>     It now appears to be defunct.  However, it can be expected to
>     have been installed by dpkg on some number of user machines,
>     and to be presently installed on those machines.
> 
> 2.  There now is a package named texbin, which provides a virtual
>     package named tex.
> 
> 3.  There are a bunch of packages generally related to TeX.

I'm not the TeX maintainer, so I don't know whether this is accurate.

> Users can reasonably be expected to look at the info reported
> by dpkg and dselect for the tex package and believe what they
> see there.  They'll get outdated and incorrect information
> when they do that.  This is not good.

This conclusion does follow from your hypotheses above.

If the texbin package were to declare `Conflicts: tex' as well as
`Provides: tex' then dpkg and dselect would know that `tex' ought to
be removed before `texbin' is installed.  Packages which Provide
things that they also Conflict with do not cause problems - they are
given a special exemption from the conflict.

Nils, would you like to comment ?  Perhaps we should reopen this bug
and assign it to the texbin package.

> [ generally incorrect speculation about dpkg deleted ]

Most of this isn't useful.  In particular, packages can be removed
other than by using dpkg --remove: if a package is deselected (for
example, by an aborted removal or by dselect) and a conflicting
package is given to dpkg for installation dpkg will remove the old
package and replace it with the new.

Packages can't invoke dpkg to change the system from their maintainer
scripts, because dpkg needs to lock the package status databases while
it is operating.  (They can use dpkg for `status enquiries', but it's
not necessarily going to give the most up to date information, so this
is not usually useful.)

Changing dpkg to interpret `Provides: foo' as `Provides: foo //
Conflicts: foo' would make dpkg less flexible, and would make it hard
to describe certain kinds of relationships to it.

Ian.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Thu Oct 12 11:59:38 1995
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 11:56:58 PDT
From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)
Message-Id: <9510121856.AA01458@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com, iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.

I just dashed off a too-quick reply to this.
Let me try again, a bit more slowly and verbosely.

Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk> said:

> > There may or may not at one time have been a real package named tex.
> > Regardless, however,  [...]
> Virtual packages do not have an existence separate from the packages
> that provide them.  In particular, if you do `dpkg --status' on a
> virtual package you won't see any email address at all, unless there
> is a concrete package of the same name.

The following appears to be the situation:

1.  There was once a package named tex.  It contained a copyright file.
    It now appears to be defunct.  However, it can be expected to
    have been installed by dpkg on some number of user machines,
    and to be presently installed on those machines.

2.  There now is a package named texbin, which provides a virtual
    package named tex.

3.  There are a bunch of packages generally related to TeX.

Users can reasonably be expected to look at the info reported
by dpkg and dselect for the tex package and believe what they
see there.  They'll get outdated and incorrect information
when they do that.  This is not good.

It from Ian's remarks that, in order to correct this situation,
the defunct tex package needs to be --remove'd from all debian
user machines where it is currently installed.

Perhaps the texbin package should test in its postinst whether
the tex package is present (how?) and dpkg --remove it if it is
(can dpkg --remove be used from a postinst script?).

Alternatively, dpkg might adopt the practice of putting an entry
in its status file for virtual packages, superseding any existing
entry it finds there with that package name (Perhaps just the
Package and Description fields, Description being:  "Provided by
package <whatever>".

Alternatively again, dpkg might adopt the practice of deleting existing
status fiele entries which collide with virtual packages when
those virtual packages are provided.

Alternatively again, dpkg might adopt the practice of considering
it a conflict to provide a virtual package which collides with an
installed physical package, and issue an error message to the effect
that the colliding physical package must be removed before the
package providing the colliding virtual package may be installed.

Of the alternatives listed, I like the last one.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Thu Oct 12 11:21:37 1995
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 19:19 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
In-Reply-To: <9510121801.AA01425@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
References: <9510121801.AA01425@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>

Bill Mitchell writes:
> > You had `tex' installed, with the old email address.  You then
> > installed a new version of `texbin', with a new email address.  You
> > then asked dpkg about `tex', and since you still had the old `tex'
> > package installed it told you the old email address.
> 
> But there is no tex package.  tex is a virtual package provided by
> the texbin package.

Your transcript said:
> root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# dpkg --status tex
> Package: tex
> Status: install ok installed
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Priority: optional
> Section: tex
> Maintainer: Nils Rennebarth <hbeck1@cfgauss.uni-math.gwdg.de>
> Version: 3.1415
> Revision: 2
> Depends: texlib, texbin
> Recommends: latex
> Optional: textfm
> Description: TeX - The typesetting system

So, not only is there a tex package, but you have it installed on your
system.  Try `dpkg -L tex' to see which files dpkg still has marked as
being part of it.

It appears to be the case that the tex package no longer exists on the
FTP archive (at least, it's not in my copy of Packages-Master), but
there was at some point a tex package, which you have installed and
not deinstalled since then.

If you were supposed to deinstall it then the TeX maintainer should
have arranged for it to be necessary for you to do so.

Ian.

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From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Thu Oct 12 11:02:59 1995
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 11:01:30 PDT
From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)
Message-Id: <9510121801.AA01425@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com>
To: debian-devel@pixar.com, debian-bugs@pixar.com, iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.

> You had `tex' installed, with the old email address.  You then
> installed a new version of `texbin', with a new email address.  You
> then asked dpkg about `tex', and since you still had the old `tex'
> package installed it told you the old email address.

But there is no tex package.  tex is a virtual package provided by
the texbin package.

Message received at debian-bugs:

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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 14:10 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: Debian developers list <debian-devel@pixar.com>, debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#1647: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages."):
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.0.0
> Revision: 0
> 
> There may or may not at one time have been a real package named tex.
> Regardless, however,  the following sequence results in incorrect
> information being presented (in this case, an old email address.
> luckily, there was a .forward file in place there.).

The transcript you enclose doesn't show anything inconsistent.

You had `tex' installed, with the old email address.  You then
installed a new version of `texbin', with a new email address.  You
then asked dpkg about `tex', and since you still had the old `tex'
package installed it told you the old email address.

I'm marking this bug as done.

> Suggest that status file info be updated from the latest info
> supplied by the package providing a virtual package.  Perhaps
> the Description field for virtual package entries might be set
> to something like "Provided by the <whatever> package", and the
> Version and Description fields omitted or set to "None".

Virtual packages do not have an existence separate from the packages
that provide them.  In particular, if you do `dpkg --status' on a
virtual package you won't see any email address at all, unless there
is a concrete package of the same name.

Ian.

Message received at debian-bugs:

From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Wed Oct 11 20:30:39 1995
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From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
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To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: dpkg can present incorrect info for virtual packages.
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Package: dpkg
Version: 1.0.0
Revision: 0

There may or may not at one time have been a real package named tex.
Regardless, however,  the following sequence results in incorrect
information being presented (in this case, an old email address.
luckily, there was a .forward file in place there.).

Suggest that status file info be updated from the latest info
supplied by the package providing a virtual package.  Perhaps
the Description field for virtual package entries might be set
to something like "Provided by the <whatever> package", and the
Version and Description fields omitted or set to "None".

Script started on Wed Oct 11 18:06:42 1995
root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# dpkg --status tex
Package: tex
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: tex
Maintainer: Nils Rennebarth <hbeck1@cfgauss.uni-math.gwdg.de>
Version: 3.1415
Revision: 2
Depends: texlib, texbin
Recommends: latex
Optional: textfm
Description: TeX - The typesetting system

root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# dpkg --install texbin.deb
(Reading database ... 12973 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace texbin (using texbin.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement texbin ...
Setting up texbin ...

root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# dpkg-deb --field texbin.deb maintainer
Nils Rennebarth <nils@nus.pan-net.de>
root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# dpkg --status tex | grep -i maintainer
Maintainer: Nils Rennebarth <hbeck1@cfgauss.uni-math.gwdg.de>
root:/mnt/i/093r6/binary/tex# exit

Script done on Wed Oct 11 18:08:55 1995


mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)