[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#338411: cupsys: CUPS handles missing directories disgracefully

[Alex Satrapa]

Package: cupsys
Version: 1.1.23-10
Severity: normal


If a required directory (in my case, /var/spool/cups/tmp) goes missing,
the CUPS admin script simply reports an internal-server-error, without
logging anything to the CUPS error log. A message such as "Cannot chdir
into /var/spool/cups/tmp: no such file or directory" would be useful in
diagnosing this issue.

As it was, I just spent two hours learning how to use strace, so I guess
you could count it as a positive ;)

At the very least, the Debian init script could check for important
directories and either create them or refuse to run if these directories
(or files) are missing. Yes, the /var/spool/cups/tmp directory is listed
as part of the cupsys Debian package, but whatever removed the directory
obviously wasn't too concerned about Debian policy or package
management. Yes, it was probably me in a fit of pique when trying to
recover some disk space.

alex:~$ diff -u /etc/init.d/cupsys cupsys
--- /etc/init.d/cupsys  2005-04-17 18:08:02.000000000 +1000
+++ cupsys      2005-11-10 16:08:56.000000000 +1100
@@ -18,6 +18,12 @@

 test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

+# Important directories:
+if [ ! -d /var/spool/cups/tmp ]; then
+   echo "Directory /var/spool/cups/tmp is missing!"
+   exit 1
+fi
+
 set -e

 # Get the timezone set.


Hope this helps.
Alex Satrapa <grail at goldweb.com.au>

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12.5
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages cupsys depends on:
ii  adduser                3.63              Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf                1.4.30.13         Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                  2.3.2.ds1-22      GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libcupsimage2          1.1.23-10         Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsys2-gnutls10    1.1.23-10         Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libgnutls11            1.0.16-13.1       GNU TLS library - runtime library
ii  libpam0g               0.76-22           Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpaper1              1.1.14-3          Library for handling paper charact
ii  libslp1                1.0.11a-2         OpenSLP libraries
ii  patch                  2.5.9-2           Apply a diff file to an original
ii  perl-modules           5.8.4-8           Core Perl modules
ii  xpdf-utils             3.00-13           Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.2-4.sarge.2 compression library - runtime

-- debconf information:
  cupsys/raw-print: true
  cupsys/backend: ipp, lpd, parallel, socket, usb