[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#679074: Bug#679074: Please separate the init scripts for a system-wide libvirtd from the binaries usable for a per-user libvirtd

[Josh Triplett]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 06:08:06PM +0200, Guido Günther wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 01:05:36AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Package: libvirt-bin
> > Severity: normal
> > 
> > libvirt-bin currently includes both the libvirtd binary (and other
> > binaries) and the init scripts to start a system instance of libvirtd.
> > However, many applications using libvirt only need a per-user instance
> > of libvirtd, not a system instance.  For instance, gnome-boxes currently
> > depends on libvirt-bin to get libvirtd, but it doesn't need the system
> > instance.  According to gnome-boxes upstream, "you can connect to remote
> > instances, but the only thing that is sanely integrated in the UI is
> > creating local VMs in a per-user libvirtd".  (Anything else, including
> > the system instance, requires hand-entering a libvirt URI.)
> > 
> > So, please split the init scripts for a system-wide libvirtd instance
> > into a separate package from the binaries.
> 
> Does it really make sense to split out the init script? Wouldn't
> disabling the daemon also do the trick? 

The gnome metapackage now depends on gnome-boxes, and gnome-boxes
depends on libvirt-bin.  So, a default install of GNOME will end up with
a running system instance of libvirtd that nothing uses.  Users
shouldn't have to manually disable unused daemons that only get pulled
in by dependencies, especially as part of the default install of
something like GNOME.

This seems quite similar to the situation with Apache: gnome-user-share
depends on apache2.2-bin to get the binaries for the Apache web server,
which it can configure and run on a per-user basis to share files.  The
Apache packages ship the init scripts in a separate package, so that
installing gnome does not result in a running system-wide web server.

- Josh Triplett