[Pkg-dkms-maint] Bug#582534: dkms: Kernel postinst script does not report errors

[Matthew Gabeler-Lee]

Package: dkms
Version: 2.1.1.2-2
Severity: important

When invoking dkms after installing a new kernel, the kernel postinst script
hides all errors.  It pipes the output of /usr/lib/dkms/dkms_autoinstaller
to /dev/null, and does not check its return code.  If any of the modules
dkms is attempting to build are important, this could be a serious problem.

Running dkms_autoinstaller by hand, it does not produce much output, even if
there is an error (one line per module build attempted), so it seems
reasonable to not pipe the output to /dev/null.  And if the module build(s)
fail, shouldn't the postinst script fail as well?

Of course I just checked, and dkms_autoinstaller does not exit with an error
code in the case of module build(s) failing, which also seems wrong.  Nor
does it send any output to stderr.  It seems to me like it ought to do both.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32.5-1 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages dkms depends on:
ii  build-essential              11.5        Informational list of build-essent
ii  dpkg-dev                     1.15.7.1    Debian package development tools
ii  gcc                          4:4.4.3-1   The GNU C compiler
ii  make                         3.81-8      An utility for Directing compilati
ii  module-init-tools            3.12~pre2-3 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

Versions of packages dkms recommends:
ii  fakeroot                      1.14.4-1   Gives a fake root environment
pn  linux-headers-2.6-686 | linux <none>     (no description available)
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-1 [linux-i 1          Linux kernel binary image for vers
ii  linux-image-2.6.31.6-1 [linux 1          Linux kernel binary image for vers
ii  linux-image-2.6.32.5-1 [linux 4          Linux kernel binary image for vers
ii  linux-image-2.6.34-1 [linux-i 1          Linux kernel binary image for vers
ii  lsb-release                   3.2-23.1   Linux Standard Base version report
ii  menu                          2.1.43     generates programs menu for all me
ii  patch                         2.6-2      Apply a diff file to an original
ii  sudo                          1.7.2p6-1  Provide limited super user privile

dkms suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information