[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#605146: hald does not start if /var/cache/hald does not exist

[Andrew Gainer]

Package: hal
Version: 0.5.14-3
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 9.1.1

If the directory /var/cache/hald does not exist, as (for example) on every boot if /var/cache is on a tmpfs, hald throws an error and fails to start. However, if the directory exists but is empty, hald will start without complaint.

The FHS 4.3 section on /var/cache states in part that an application using a data store in /var/cache "must be able to recover from manual deletion of these files", which hald evidently does not do as regards the directory /var/cache/hald itself.

A similar bug in apt (#523920) was fixed a few months ago.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (200, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
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