Bug#1070098: openssh-sftp-server: False dependency on openssh-client

Package: openssh-sftp-server
Version: 1:9.2p1-2+deb12u2
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]

Dear Maintainer,

*** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where appropriate ***

   * What led up to the situation?

Was switching from OpenSSH to Dropbear due to installing on an extremely limited
system with <1GB total disk space available at the time, but needed to retain
SFTP support which requires the openssh-sftp-server package.

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

Manually installed the openssh-sftp-server package.

dpkg --ignore-depends=openssh-client -P openssh-client

This purged the openssh-client contents while leaving openssh-sftp-server intact,
allowing me to test functionality.

   * What was the outcome of this action?

Dependencies installed openssh-client package as well.

SFTP still worked after purging openssh-client, and openssh-sftp-server only has
a single executable inside of it so this appears to be a safe decoupling?

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

Only the openssh-sftp-server package to be installed, as it has no ties to the
openssh-client files and is in fact only used by the server side components.

Related but dropbear-bin also has a suggestion to install openssh-client,
however dropbear-bin includes all relevant key-generation tools natively,
so perhaps this 'Suggestion' should point to openssh-sftp-server instead?

*** End of the template - remove these template lines ***


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 12.5
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-20-amd64 (SMP w/56 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages openssh-sftp-server depends on:
ii  libc6           2.36-9+deb12u6
ii  openssh-client  1:9.2p1-2+deb12u2

Versions of packages openssh-sftp-server recommends:
ii  dropbear-bin [ssh-server]  2022.83-1+deb12u1

openssh-sftp-server suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information