[Buildd-tools-devel] Bug#401180: schroot: using a symlink for /var/lib/schroot/mount causes /home and /tmp to be erased

[Steve Langasek]

severity 401180 important
thanks

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 02:29:29PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Package: schroot
> Version: 1.0.3-1
> Severity: critical
> Justification: causes removal of /home

> I am using "file" chroots. the chroot is usually untared under
> /var/lib/schroot, however, I wanted to change this to another location
> (my /var is quite small, and many apps don't like it being full).

> I couldn't find any way to specify another directory for this, so I just
> symlinked /var/lib/schroot to another place. However, this caused
> $LIBEXEC_DIR/schroot-listmounts to be unable to determine that /home,
> /tmp, etc were still bind-mounted. So do_umount_all in that file exits
> without error even if my filesystems are still bind-mounted, and my home
> directory and my /tmp got removed.

Symlinking system directories that are under the control of packages is
always a risky affair.  I'm sorry if this resulted in real data loss for
you, but I don't think it's appropriate to hold schroot responsible at an
RC-level for all the ways that things can go wrong if you put symlinks where
directories are expected.

BTW, an obvious way to do this without the use of symlinks would be to make
/var/lib/schroot *itself* a bind-mount...

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/