Debian Bug report logs - #501794
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: --frontend should override DEBIAN_FRONTEND setting from environment

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Andreas Beckmann <debian@abeckmann.de>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: --frontend should override DEBIAN_FRONTEND setting from environment

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:10:09 +0200

Package: debconf
Version: 1.5.22
Severity: normal
File: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure

Hi,

shouldn't command line settings override the environment?
Probably not only --frontend vs. DEBIAN_FRONTEND, but for other
parameters as well.

I just ran into a problem when I wanted to manually reconfigure a
package in a pbuilder environment (which had
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive set, but I didn't recognize this at
once). Even running
  dpkg-reconfigure --frontend foobar package
just exited with 0. No questions were asked. No way to reconfigure even
debconf. Every option given to --frontend was silently overridden by
DEBIAN_FRONTEND.

These environment variables are also not mentioned in the
dpkg-reconfigure manpage, only in debconf(7) which is in a separate
package debconf-doc.


Andreas

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (300, 'unstable'), (130, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages debconf depends on:
ii  debconf-i18n                  1.5.22     full internationalization support 
ii  perl-base                     5.10.0-15  minimal Perl system

Versions of packages debconf recommends:
ii  apt-utils                     0.7.14+b1  APT utility programs

Versions of packages debconf suggests:
pn  debconf-doc               <none>         (no description available)
ii  debconf-utils             1.5.22         debconf utilities
ii  dialog                    1.1-20080316-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  gnome-utils               2.20.0.1-2     GNOME desktop utilities
ii  libgnome2-perl            1.042-1+b1     Perl interface to the GNOME librar
pn  libnet-ldap-perl          <none>         (no description available)
pn  libqt-perl                <none>         (no description available)
ii  libterm-readline-gnu-perl 1.17a-2+b1     Perl extension for the GNU Readlin
ii  perl                      5.10.0-15      Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  whiptail                  0.52.2-11.3    Displays user-friendly dialog boxe

-- debconf information:
  debconf-apt-progress/title:
  debconf-apt-progress/info:
* debconf/priority: low
  debconf-apt-progress/preparing:
  debconf-apt-progress/media-change:
* debconf/frontend: Dialog

Message #10 received at 501794@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

To: 501794@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Andreas Beckmann <debian@abeckmann.de>

Subject: Re: Bug#501794: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: --frontend should override DEBIAN_FRONTEND setting from environment

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:32:03 +0100

On 2008-10-10 16:10 +0100, Andreas Beckmann wrote:

> Package: debconf
> Version: 1.5.22
> Severity: normal
> File: /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure
>
> Hi,
>
> shouldn't command line settings override the environment?
> Probably not only --frontend vs. DEBIAN_FRONTEND, but for other
> parameters as well.

This is the behavior in all programs I've seen so far.

> I just ran into a problem when I wanted to manually reconfigure a
> package in a pbuilder environment (which had
> DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive set, but I didn't recognize this at
> once). Even running
>   dpkg-reconfigure --frontend foobar package
> just exited with 0. No questions were asked. No way to reconfigure even
> debconf. Every option given to --frontend was silently overridden by
> DEBIAN_FRONTEND.

AOL.  I just tried to change /bin/sh to dash in my pbuilder setup and
scratched my head why "dpkg-reconfigure dash" would not do anything,
even with the --frontend and --priority options.

> These environment variables are also not mentioned in the
> dpkg-reconfigure manpage, only in debconf(7) which is in a separate
> package debconf-doc.

And even debconf.7 does not mention that DEBIAN_FRONTEND overrides the
--frontend option, at last I found it in the Debian changelog.

Sven

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