Hello,

I assume this topic is not specific to one package but to the whole
python packaging universe.

There is "backintime" which unittests do write to $HOME. I'm one of the
new upstream maintainers and know that this isn't a good idea. It will
take time to fix this.
About that problem there is a debian bug report nearly 4 years old

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=940319

It tells that this is a problem because writing to HOME during build "is disabled on Debian auto-builders".

My question now is why newer version of this package are uploaded then?
I couldn't find that the tests where deactivated. Maybe this "disabled
on Debian auto-builders" is outdated and today it is possible to write
to HOME during build?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 07:52:35AM +0000, [email protected] wrote:

I assume this topic is not specific to one package but to the whole python packaging universe.

There is "backintime" which unittests do write to $HOME. I'm one of the new upstream maintainers and know that this isn't a good idea. It will take time to fix this.
About that problem there is a debian bug report nearly 4 years old

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=940319

It tells that this is a problem because writing to HOME during build "is disabled on Debian auto-builders".

My question now is why newer version of this package are uploaded then? I couldn't find that the tests where deactivated.

As the software doesn't use a discoverabe build system the package needs
to have all build steps explicitly in d/rules, and it just doesn't have
the test step there.

Maybe this "disabled on
Debian auto-builders" is outdated and today it is possible to write to HOME during build?

No.
The usual solution is AFAIK to set a temporary $HOME inside d/rules though.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Dear Andrey,

thank you for the reply.

Am 29.03.2023 11:40 schrieb Andrey Rakhmatullin:

The usual solution is AFAIK to set a temporary $HOME inside d/rules
though.

I was looking into

https://salsa.debian.org/jmw/pkg-backintime/-/blob/debian/debian/rules

I don't see creation of a HOME or deactivation of a test.

I assume I have to wait of an answer from the package maintainer.

Thanks in advance

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 at 07:52:35 +0000, [email protected] wrote:

My question now is why newer version of this package are uploaded then? I couldn't find that the tests where deactivated. Maybe this "disabled on Debian auto-builders" is outdated and today it is possible to write to HOME during build?

In compat level 13, debhelper will set $HOME to a temporary directory
during the build (see #942111).

The user's "official" home directory in the system user database
(getent passwd $(id -u) | cut -d: -f6) is still set to a directory that
does't exist (/nonexistent) on the official buildds.

From an upstream point of view it's still bad for unit tests to do

anything destructive in $HOME, because upstream developers who run the
unit tests won't want their data destroyed, but it's harmless to do non-destructive things like writing to ~/.cache.

smcv

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Dear Andrey,

thank you for the reply.

Am 29.03.2023 11:40 schrieb Andrey Rakhmatullin:

The usual solution is AFAIK to set a temporary $HOME inside d/rules
though.

I was looking into

https://salsa.debian.org/jmw/pkg-backintime/-/blob/debian/debian/rules

I don't see creation of a HOME or deactivation of a test.

I assume I have to wait of an answer from the package maintainer.

Thanks in advance

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 10:03:31AM +0000, [email protected] wrote:

The usual solution is AFAIK to set a temporary $HOME inside d/rules
though.

I was looking into https://salsa.debian.org/jmw/pkg-backintime/-/blob/debian/debian/rules

I don't see creation of a HOME or deactivation of a test.

This means you've missed my explanation.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)