Bug#1115317: Technical Committee resolution on /var/lock and systemd

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Tue, 07 Oct 2025 13:54:10 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.ctte
Message-ID	<87zfa3vsf1.fsf__21548.0219035939$1759838254$gmane$org@josefsson.org>

Matthew Vernon <[email protected]> writes:

> The TC therefore resolves that systemd shall provide /var/lock with
> relaxed enough permissions that existing Debian software that uses
> /var/lock for system-wide locks of serial devices (and similar
> purposes) works again.

Has it been discussed that /var/lock could be provided by some other
package than systemd?

I agree with everything in your e-mail, but it seems entirely possible
to reach the same goal by having /var/lock be "owned" by some other
package instead of systemd, which apparently have little interest to
support /var/lock.  I can sympathise with systemd upstream on that, and
their desire to drop everything about /var/lock.  Moving ownership of
/var/lock to another package, e.g., a NEW 'var-lock' package, may be a
friendlier way forward to everyone.

Is there a reason the /var/lock directory MUST be provided by systemd
and no other package could provide it?

Then all packages that need /var/lock in Debian can depend on this
'var-lock' package, which would also allow us to better track which
packages still use this suboptimal interface for device locking.  Or
just move the directory to 'base-files' or similar.

Just an idea,
/Simon

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