[arch-general] drop dependencies on legacy inetutils for `hostname`

Geert Hendrickx geert at hendrickx.be
Sun Aug 23 14:50:03 UTC 2020


Hi

A number of packages depend on inetutils merely for the `hostname` command.
Common packages include xorg-xinit and mariadb, which makes that inetutils
is still installed on a large number of Arch systems, although its other
components like rcp, rsh, talk, telnet ... and their server counterparts,
are really old, deprecated, and totally insecure.  Plus the implementation
seems to be largely abandoned by upstream (see FS#61041).  Needless to say,
I don't want any of these installed on my systems.

Since `hostname` is still somewhat common though, there are probably more
implicit dependencies on it, for example FS#66603.

So I would like to eliminate dependencies on inetutils just for hostname,
in one of the following ways:

1/ Split the inetutils package and provide hostname as a sub-package (but
   then still need to maintain inetutils)

2/ Package the Debian implementation, also used by Fedora and others (but
   this includes other legacy shit like `nisdomainname` and `ypdomainname`)
   See https://packages.qa.debian.org/h/hostname.html

3/ Use the implementation provided by gettext (/usr/lib/gettext/hostname),
   which is already part of base, and thus eliminates the need for explicit
   dependencies.  Although this implementation can only *get* the hostname,
   not *set* it, that's all the dependent packages need, and setting the
   hostname is nowadays handled by systemd's `hostnamectl` anyway.

My preference would be 3/, for simplicity.  I already run my systems with
/usr/bin/hostname symlinked to /usr/lib/gettext/hostname (after forcibly
removing inetutils), and noticed no issues.

This can be done in two steps:
i.  make the gettext package install (or symlink) /usr/bin/hostname,
    drop it from inetutils, and introduce mutual conflicts on older
    versions of each.
ii. drop the dependency on inetutils from other packages (or replace it
    with a dependency on hostname if options 1/ or 2/ are preferred).

Fans of `telnet` can continue to install inetutils manually, of course. ;-)

WDYT ?


	Geert


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