[debian-mysql] Bug#868445: Bug#868445: mysql-server: Would like a way to suppress spurious ERROR 1547

[Robie Basak]

Hi David,

Thank you for your report.

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 08:58:21AM -0400, David Lee Lambert wrote:
> Some time ago, on my main Debian MySQL server, I added an extra
> column to the "mysql.user" table of type "timestamp", for auditing
> purposes.  It didn't cause any trouble at the time, but now when
> I try to issue a GRANT statement I get the error
> 
> ERROR 1547 (HY000): Column count of mysql.user is wrong. Expected 42, found 43. The table is probably corrupted
> 
> Dropping the extra column gets me past the error, but I wish I could
> keep that information. In fact, since the error showed up after "security"
> updates on the Debian Stable branch, I consider it a REGRESSION.

I don't think it's reasonable to consider this a regression. A stable
update (whether security or not) by definition must change some
behaviour. In general, I think it's reasonable for such updates to
assume that users haven't messed with internal data structures.
Otherwise, how would a security update that must modify an internal data
structure work?

In this particular case, it does appear unnecessary that there is an
additional check here, but I won't conclude that without knowing exactly
why it was done.

I'm happy to ask upstream on their view on this, and the reasoning for
this change, and see if they think the error can be reduced to a warning
in this case.

Robie
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