Bug 10433

Seeing these bugs, I think using update-alternatives to manage init scripts is a bad idea altogether. Whatever ordering we have with the classes we always have some kind of a problem because of missing symlink at some point. I try to fix it by making the syslog packages work like any other daemon package in that regard: don't use update alternatives.

Patches sent for oe-core and meta-oe:
https://patchwork.openembedded.org/series/4013/
https://patchwork.openembedded.org/series/4014/

I submitted the following series that rather modify the task ordering between update-alternatives and update-rc.d instead of simply removing it and creating RCONFLICTS:
https://patchwork.openembedded.org/series/4061/

It has been successfully tested with syslog-ng on morty. It does not yet cleanly apply, but I will resubmit a v2 ASAP.

(In reply to comment #3)
> I submitted the following series that rather modify the task ordering
> between update-alternatives and update-rc.d instead of simply removing it
> and creating RCONFLICTS:

I'm still not convinced that init scripts should be managed by update-alternatives. First, I don't see much reasoning why two syslog services should be installed in parallel. Also, no other package or distro use this kind of construction, AFAIK.

If we really want to make these install in parallel I think we should just name the files differently, e.g.
/etc/init.d/busybox-syslog
/etc/init.d/sysklogd
/etc/init.d/rsyslog
...

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > I submitted the following series that rather modify the task ordering
> > between update-alternatives and update-rc.d instead of simply removing it
> > and creating RCONFLICTS:
> 
> I'm still not convinced that init scripts should be managed by
> update-alternatives. First, I don't see much reasoning why two syslog
> services should be installed in parallel. Also, no other package or distro
> use this kind of construction, AFAIK.

Maybe there should be a virtual/logger, then ?

But the problem could also be raised by cron daemons for example. In fact, I think the main problem lies with busybox which offers alternatives for such packages and these alternatives must be overridden when a new one is selected.

> 
> If we really want to make these install in parallel I think we should just
> name the files differently, e.g.
> /etc/init.d/busybox-syslog
> /etc/init.d/sysklogd
> /etc/init.d/rsyslog
> ...

The problem is when using different names is that update-rc.d will install all links in rc*.d thus creating logger conflicts (I don't know if that's even possible but it's the general idea).

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > (In reply to comment #3)
> > > I submitted the following series that rather modify the task ordering
> > > between update-alternatives and update-rc.d instead of simply removing it
> > > and creating RCONFLICTS:
> > 
> > I'm still not convinced that init scripts should be managed by
> > update-alternatives. First, I don't see much reasoning why two syslog
> > services should be installed in parallel. Also, no other package or distro
> > use this kind of construction, AFAIK.
> 
> Maybe there should be a virtual/logger, then ?

This doesn't work nicely because the virtual/* packages are on source package level. This syslog overlap is on binary (runtime) package level. My patch introduces VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_syslog just for this purpose.


> But the problem could also be raised by cron daemons for example. In fact, I
> think the main problem lies with busybox which offers alternatives for such
> packages and these alternatives must be overridden when a new one is
> selected.

I think these should and are handled by VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_* definitions

My latest patchset is here:
http://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core-contrib/log/?h=marquiz/fixes-10433

However, it isn't a possible solution because of bugs in opkg and smartpm (for deb backend it works as expected). A solution would be to merge David's patch, but as a temporary workaround. I'd suggest the following:
1. Merge David's patch
2. Close this bug
3. Create a new bug that would
   - be about reverting David's patch and merging my patches
   - block on bug 9675
   - block on bug 10777

Before closing this bug, I just want to add that my patch is harmless in the long run. Even if a solution is found for this initscript/alternatives issue (for syslogd and any other daemons conflicting with busybox...), all it does is create comments inside prerm/postinst sections of package scripts and organize the two sections accordingly if update-rc.d and update-alternatives are both inherited in a recipe.

I completely agree that initscripts should not be managed via alternatives but it is also not forbidden to do so. No distribution does this, because I think busybox is not used in them outside initramfs and conflicting packages like you did is perfect at handling this case. But the situation is different in the embedded world where busybox is always running somewhere...

So before reverting it, I think it must be noted that this could be the kind of bug which reappears just because another layer is not so thoughtful about this.

Busybox shouldn't be a problem, even in the present situation, because it is divided into multiple (runtime) sub-packages. Busybox-syslog can be replaced with something else even if the rest of busybox is installed in the system.

The reason I'd like to get your patch reverted in the future, assuming we can achieve a "packaging-level solution", is that I'd like keep the code as simple as possible. Thus, even if it is harmless, I kind see it as a kludge to work around an issue in just one package.

OK, I now see your point. BTW, I resubmitted my patch since it did not apply on latest 'master', so there should be no problem merging it now.

Merged in oe-core aa87b1a4dcc14e4dfe719b6c55045c5662bc59c2.

Fix backported and merged into morty:
http://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/commit/?h=morty&id=b0c70bef015f1b2a30556a5db5e255592d5bf316