On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 7:11:31 PM EST Maxwell G wrote:
Hi,
On Tuesday, November 23, 2021 1:37:36 PM CST Steve Grubb wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am preparing to migate a F35 system to new hardware and was sanity
> checking the whole system. One thing I found was that there are a number
> of system directories that that are not owned by the package that uses
> them:
>
> /var/cache/ibus
> /var/cache/PackageKit
> /var/cache/cups
> /var/log/anaconda
> /var/lib/tpm2-tss
> /var/lib/machines
> /var/lib/hsqldb
> /var/lib/cs
> /var/lib/rpcbind
> /var/lib/portables
> /etc/module-build-service
> /etc/default
> /etc/pesign
> /etc/ipa
> /etc/ndctl
> /etc/flatpak
Yes, I have also noticed issues with directory ownership. However, I am
not sure what the rules are about packages owning directories under
`/var/cache` or `/var` in general. I can tell you that the `filesystem`
package owns `/var/cache` itself:
If they use it, they should declare it. Otherwise how do you know what you
can safely rm -rf ? If you have migrated a system over many releases, this
is important so that you know what can safely be deleted.
```
$ rpm -qf /var/cache
filesystem-3.14-7.fc35.x86_64
```
Top level ownership is not good enough because we have to be able to
determine what is in use now vs what I can delete.
There are also some directories that are owned by multiple packages,
e.g.
shell completions packages[1,2], instead of none at all.
That is a separate problem.
> Should there be a gating or other test that catches this?
I think there should be. For your reference, here[3,4] are the sections of
the Fedora Packaging Guidelines surrounding directory ownership.
I think either rpmlint and/or gating should verify ownership. There is a
problem of common ownership. But as long as someone owns it, this helps to
know if we can rm -rf the directory.
-Steve