[Pkg-zope-developers] Bug#354941: zope3-sandbox: problem seems caused by default values; suggest fixing

[Ross Boylan]

Package: zope3-sandbox
Version: 3.2.0-4
Followup-For: Bug #354941

I ran into this too, and suggest reopening this bug for several reasons:

1. The problematic setting appears to be the default value.  Earlier
in this bug report you suggest that the submitter had set the value,
but if I understand the following output (the lack of a *), it means I
had abort from the default installation:
# debconf-show zope3-sandbox
* zope3-sandbox/admin-password: (password omitted)
* zope3-sandbox/admin-password-confirmation: (password omitted)
  zope3-sandbox/remove-instance-without-data: abort
  zope3-sandbox/internal:
* zope3-sandbox/admin-user: admin
* zope3-sandbox/instance-http-port: 82
* zope3-sandbox/keep-data-on-purge: false

2. Regardless of the source of the setting for
remove-instance-without-data, the current behavior for abort is
cryptic, providing little information about what is going on and none
about how to fix it.

Among the possible solutions are
a) eliminating abort as an option.
This would still require handling prior installations that have abort
set.
b) behaving more gracefully in the presence of abort.
c) failing in a more informative way.
d) documenting the current behavior and providing a work around..

I had some trouble figuring out how to fix the problem even once I
knew what it was.  For example, dpkg-reconfigure did not work:

# dpkg-reconfigure zope3-sandbox
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: zope3-sandbox is broken or not fully installed
# dpkg-reconfigure -p low zope3-sandbox
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: zope3-sandbox is broken or not fully installed
# dpkg-reconfigure -plow zope3-sandbox
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: zope3-sandbox is broken or not fully installed

I finally worked around it by
# debconf-set-selections
zope3-sandbox   zope3-sandbox/remove-instance-without-data      select  yes

I typed the line after the debconf-set-selections, and then hit ^d.
I based the line on the output of
# debconf-get-selections | grep zope3-sandbox

By the way, the minimal form of d) would be to leave this bugreport
open so other people who run into it can find it.

I should note that before all this I had some problems with the
sandbox installation, though I'm not sure if that was with Zope 3 or
an earlier one.

I'm also not entirely sure what the remove-instance-without-data
setting does, or what its implications are.  Doesn't every instance
have data?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (990, 'stable'), (50, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27advncdfs
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages zope3-sandbox depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.4.71     Debian configuration management sy
ii  zope-common                   0.5.20     common settings and scripts for zo
ii  zope3                         3.2.0-4    Open Source Web Application Server

Versions of packages zope3-sandbox recommends:
ii  zope3-doc                     3.2.0-4    Documentation for Zope3

-- debconf information:
* zope3-sandbox/admin-automatic-password:
* zope3-sandbox/remove-instance-without-data:  yes
  zope3-sandbox/internal:
* zope3-sandbox/admin-user: admin
* zope3-sandbox/instance-http-port: 82
* zope3-sandbox/keep-data-on-purge: false