Ubuntu

Ubuntu puts binary files in /etc

Bug #1001334 reported by James Hunt on 2012-05-18

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	Ubuntu	Invalid	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

A number of package place binary files into /etc:

/etc/ImageMagick/sRGB.icm: Microsoft ICM Color Profile
/etc/aliases.db: Berkeley DB (Hash, version 9, native byte-order)
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/gdm-guest-session: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/lightdm-guest-session: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/lxc-containers: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/opt.extras.ubuntu.com.unity-askubuntu-lens.unity-askubuntu-daemon: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/sbin.dhclient: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/secure-web-in-tmp: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/secure-web: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.bin.evince: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.bin.lxc-start: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.lib.libvirt.virt-aa-helper: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.lib.telepathy: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.cupsd: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.dhcpd3: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.dhcpd: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.libvirtd: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.mysqld-akonadi: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.mysqld-digikam: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.mysqld: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.ntpd: data
/etc/apparmor.d/cache/usr.sbin.tcpdump: data
/etc/apt/trustdb.gpg: GPG key trust database version 3
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg: GPG key public ring
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg~: GPG key public ring
/etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Apr 20 08:10:42 2012, max compression
/etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Dec 2 10:08:35 2011, max compression
/etc/emacs23/site-start.d/00debian-vars.elc: Emacs/XEmacs v23 byte-compiled Lisp data
/etc/java-6-openjdk/fontconfig.bfc: raw G3 data
/etc/java/cacerts-gcj: data
/etc/ld.so.cache: data
/etc/localtime: timezone data, version 2, 7 gmt time flags, 7 std time flags, no leap seconds, 242 transition times, 7 abbreviation chars
/etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts: Java KeyStore

The FHS doesn't make it entirely clear:

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html

... but having binary files such as these would cause issues were we to implement the following blueprint:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-q-dpkg-pristine-conffiles

As a minimum, it appears from reading the FHS that ld.so.cache, localtime and aliases.db should not be in the top-level /etc/ directory, although I can see that moving these files may be problematic :)

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Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton) wrote on 2012-05-18:

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1001334/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

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shankao (shankao) wrote on 2013-01-16:

I see two possible action courses for this bug:

a) Create a separate bug for each package that puts binaries under /etc. This would raise the attention of the package maintainers; a generic "ubuntu" bug is seldom properly looked at.

b) Modify the packaging tools to not allow put binaries under /etc in the first place. Even some lintian warnings would help

In any case, this is not a bug, but an improvement to ubuntu [1]. Closing.

[1] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Responses#An_idea_to_improve_Ubuntu