Debian Bug report logs - #993675
opensmtpd: stores wrong path to zcat if /usr/bin/zcat or /usr/local/bin/zcat exists

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

From: Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org>

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

Subject: opensmtpd: stores wrong path to zcat if /usr/bin/zcat or /usr/local/bin/zcat exists

Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2021 18:03:11 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Source: opensmtpd
Version: 6.8.0p2-3
Severity: important
Tags: patch bookworm sid
User: reproducible-builds@lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: usrmerge
X-Debbugs-Cc: reproducible-bugs@lists.alioth.debian.org

If opensmtpd is built on a merged-/usr system (as created by new
installations of Debian >= 10, debootstrap --merged-usr, or installing
the usrmerge package into an existing installation), the path to zcat
is recorded in the binary package as /usr/bin/zcat, rather than the
canonical /bin/zcat.

This can be seen on the reproducible-builds.org infra:
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/rb-pkg/unstable/i386/diffoscope-results/opensmtpd.html

If you have sbuild available, an easy way to reproduce this is to build
twice, once with --add-depends=usrmerge and once without.

I suspect the same thing would happen if opensmtpd was built on a system
where /sbin and /usr/sbin had instead been unified via a symlink farm.

The problematic situation is if the package is *built* on a unified-/usr
system, but *used* on a non-unified-/usr system. In this situation,
/usr/bin/zcat exists on the build system but not on the system where
the package will be used, resulting in the features that use this
executable not working correctly.

Similarly, if there is a /usr/local/bin/zcat visible at build-time,
then that path would likely end up hard-coded into the binary,
causing the relevant feature to fail on all systems that do not have
/usr/local/bin/zcat.

Technical Committee resolution #978636 mandates heading towards a
transition to merged-/usr, and variation between merged-/usr and
non-merged-/usr builds is a problem while that transition is taking
place, because it can lead to partial upgrades behaving incorrectly. It
is likely that this class of bugs will become release-critical later in
the bookworm development cycle.

The attached patch resolves this: with it applied, the package builds
identically with and without --add-depends=usrmerge.

Some developers advocate unifying /bin with /usr/bin via a symlink farm
in /bin instead of merged-/usr, but that strategy would have a similar
practical effect on this particular package, and the same solution would
be required.

A side benefit of fixing this is that this change seems likely to be
sufficient to make the package reproducible (as recommended by Policy
§4.15).

    smcv

[0001-d-rules-Specify-canonical-path-to-zcat.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Message #10 received at 993675-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Debian FTP Masters <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>

To: 993675-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#993675: fixed in opensmtpd 6.8.0p2-4

Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2021 14:24:19 +0000

Source: opensmtpd
Source-Version: 6.8.0p2-4
Done: Ryan Kavanagh <rak@debian.org>

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
opensmtpd, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 993675@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Ryan Kavanagh <rak@debian.org> (supplier of updated opensmtpd package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


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Hash: SHA512

Format: 1.8
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2021 09:35:41 -0400
Source: opensmtpd
Architecture: source
Version: 6.8.0p2-4
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Ryan Kavanagh <rak@debian.org>
Changed-By: Ryan Kavanagh <rak@debian.org>
Closes: 993675
Changes:
 opensmtpd (6.8.0p2-4) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Fix typo in gecos fields
   * Bump standards version to 4.6.0
   * Build identical packages, regardless of whether the build environment uses
     usrmerge (Closes: #993675)
Checksums-Sha1:
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 b0f588d2231ff4340a300579607aaf058d5848f7 24852 opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4.debian.tar.xz
 51b449e17710b7c6165d6bcdaf8d8da62cab8ebc 6644 opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4_amd64.buildinfo
Checksums-Sha256:
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 8cf4aee9c29683f40fca97ea32d3382533971d2e941ffac8f92f34c68163bf72 24852 opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4.debian.tar.xz
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Files:
 71e23d7c04114a8fd8c70033da55ddb6 1955 mail optional opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4.dsc
 e077aa0d2b7a65f6318f8cc13f608b8c 24852 mail optional opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4.debian.tar.xz
 5ae531362e735f08dfc466eff9e31af6 6644 mail optional opensmtpd_6.8.0p2-4_amd64.buildinfo

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