Bug#545512: cyrus-common-2.2: unnecessarily runs cyrus-makedirs on all upgrades

[Noah Meyerhans]

Package: cyrus-common-2.2
Version: 2.2.13-10+etch2
Severity: normal

cyrus-common-2.2.postinst runs cyrus-makedirs on all package updates,
even when it's not necessary.  In the case of the recent security update
in 2.2.13-10+etch2, this resulted in a multi-hour outage at my site
while a giant recursive chown was run over the spool directories.
cyrus-makedirs was not necessary in this case, and the outage shouldn't
have lasted more than a few seconds.  cyrus-makedirs doesn't seem to do
anything other than make directories, set permissions, set some
filesystem attributes, and optionally delete old sieve files.  When
performing package upgrades, it's rare that these operations are
actually necessary.

I suggest that the postinst script be modified to only run when
upgrading to versions that change the directory structure or otherwise
introduce configuration changes that actually require it's
functionality.  Otherwise it's a very expensive no-op.

Although this bug is filed against the version in oldstable, it looks
this still happens in current versions of this package in unstable.

Thanks.
noah

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers oldstable
  APT policy: (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.21.7-csail
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages cyrus-common-2.2 depends on:
ii  add 3.102                                Add and remove users and groups
ii  deb 1.5.11etch2                          Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpk 1.13.26                              package maintenance system for Deb
ii  exi 4.63-17                              lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  gaw 1:3.1.5.dfsg-4                       GNU awk, a pattern scanning and pr
ii  lib 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9                    GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  lib 1.39+1.40-WIP-2006.11.14+dfsg-2etch1 common error description library
ii  lib 4.2.52+dfsg-2                        Berkeley v4.2 Database Libraries [
ii  lib 1.4.4-7etch7                         MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii  lib 2.1.22.dfsg1-8+etch1                 Authentication abstraction library
ii  lib 5.2.3-7etch4                         NET SNMP (Simple Network Managemen
ii  lib 0.9.8c-4etch5                        SSL shared libraries
ii  lib 7.6.dbs-13                           Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  lib 2.1.20010518.SNAPSHOT-17.1           The original "Instant Message" sys
ii  net 4.29                                 Basic TCP/IP networking system
ii  per 5.8.8-7etch6                         Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 

Versions of packages cyrus-common-2.2 recommends:
ii  cyrus-admin-2.2          2.2.13-10+etch2 Cyrus mail system (administration 
ii  cyrus-imapd-2.2          2.2.13-10+etch2 Cyrus mail system (IMAP support)
ii  cyrus-pop3d-2.2          2.2.13-10+etch2 Cyrus mail system (POP3 support)

-- debconf information:
  cyrus-common-2.2/removespools: false
  cyrus-common-2.2/warnbackendchange: