[arch-general] Recent logwatch update may need a news item?

[Eli Schwartz]

On September 19, 2019 1:00:26 PM EDT, Amish via arch-general <arch-general at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Recently logwatch package was updated.
> 
> The cron file (from cron.daily) was removed and replaced with
> systemd.timer.
> 
> But logwatch.timer is not activated automatically, which means the
> users 
> who use logwatch will stop getting daily "auditing" emails and may not
> 
> realize this for some days that emails from logwatch have stopped
> coming.
> 
> This requires manual intervention to activate logwatch.timer.
> 
> Since keeping an eye on logs is very important thing to do, this
> should 
> be put as NEWS item. (in my opinion).

Your opinion is all nice and well, but what's wrong with a package post_upgrade notice? NEWS items for breaking changes are done when the breaking change needs to be resolved in order to successfully execute Pacman and upgrade the package at all.

> 
> Additionally, current logwatch.service calls "/usr/sbin/logwatch"
> alone. 
> Which means by default it sends output to systemd journal. (whereas
> cron 
> based timer used to send an email to root which could be an alias to 
> real email address)
> 
> To preserve the existing behaviour, the ExecStart line should be
> changed 
> to ExecStart=/usr/bin/logwatch --output mail"
> 
> Even if this is not made a news item, this email is also sent to alert
> 
> those users who use logwatch that they need to take following actions:
> 
> 1) pacman -Syu
> 
> 2) cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/logwatch.service.d/local.conf
> [Service]
> ExecStart=
> ExecStart=/usr/bin/logwatch --output mail
> 
> 3) systemctl daemon-reload
> 4) systemctl --now enable logwatch.timer

I guess it's entirely possible that users were logging without using mail at all. There are guides for generically forwarding systemd logs via email, though.


-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 858 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/attachments/20190919/b0968921/attachment.sig>