[Pkg-net-snmp-devel] Bug#453123: debconf interaction not closed

[Ferenc Wagner]

man debconf-devel (on an Etch system) says:

   If your postinst launches a daemon, make sure you tell debconf to
   STOP at the end, since debconf can become a little confused about
   when your postinst is done otherwise.

So why not follow good advice?  Adding db_stop to the end of
snmpd.postinst works around the problem on Etch.  The security upgrade
to 5.2.3-7etch4 hung on me just now...

Of course not leaking file descriptors is a good practice, but it
isn't the responsibility of all the daemons of the world to close all
possible file descriptors their parent might have leaked to them (see
for example http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=486826#37).

In my opinion the right fix would be issuing db_stop early in the
postinst, before starting the daemons, and depending on that for
closing the debconf file descriptors.  I didn't test if that actually
happens, but it not, then that's a bug in debconf.
-- 
Cheers,
Feri.