elinks fifo problem in debathena-login

[broder]

debathena-linerva currently replaces elinks with a wrapper that keeps it from trying to open a fifo in your homedir (which you can't do in AFS).

The script should be changed to conditionalize on DEBATHENA_HOME_TYPE. It should be separated into its own packge. That package should divert elinks, but not depend on it, so that it'll work if elinks happens to be installed. And the new package should be added to debathena-locker.

[andersk]

   debathena / testers / andersk  15:16  (Anders Kaseorg)
       Uh, it is extremely dangerous to divert a binary without depending on
       it, because it breaks programs that test for the existence of that
       binary.
   debathena / testers / broder  15:18  (Evan Broder)
       Huh?
   debathena / testers / geofft  15:18  (forbidden-config-interpreter)
       A stat will fail... are there really things that will lstat elinks?
   debathena / testers / andersk  15:18  (Anders Kaseorg)
       No, that’s not the point.  The binary really _does_ exist, because it
       is now symlinked to the wrapper script.
   debathena / testers / geofft  15:19  (select-without-choices)
       Oh, right
   debathena / testers / andersk  15:19  (Anders Kaseorg)
       But when you run the wrapper script it will complain about the
       missing .debathena-orig
   debathena / testers / andersk  15:20  (Anders Kaseorg)
       I think you guys are becoming way too comfortable to throw up
       config-package-dev diversions on users’ machines without carefully
       considering the consequences.  c-p-d is not a magical black box that
       solves all your problems.
   debathena / testers / andersk  15:20  (Anders Kaseorg)
       We tried to make a good abstraction, but we simply don’t have the
       tools available to prevent it from leaking in lots of ways.

   debathena / testers / andersk  15:24  (Anders Kaseorg)
       Also, this is not a -locker problem.  This is only a problem with AFS
       _home_ directories, not with the existence lockers.

[andersk]

Is this problem even worth solving anymore? I think links2 is better maintained than elinks these days, and it doesn’t have the fifo problem at all. I propose removing elinks from -extra-software-nox and declaring this wontfix.

[broder]

Replying to andersk:

I propose removing elinks from -extra-software-nox and declaring this wontfix.

I agree, and will plan to do so on Saturday if nobody objects.

[broder]

Fix uploaded to -proposed. Since this is a simple change, I'll plan to move this to production late Monday.

[broder]

Oh whoops - I haven't moved this change to production yet.