[arch-general] pacman caches packages with u=rw, g=, o= permissions

mpan archml-y1vf3axu at mpan.pl
Wed Jan 19 12:33:52 UTC 2022


> According to
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance#Partial_upgrades_are_unsupported
> pacman -Sywu is not safe. But pacman -Syu is safe. Quoting the wiki, the
> rational is that pacman -Sywu
>      will update the pacman sync database without installing the newer packages.
> What I fail to see is why pacman -Sywu, followed by pacman -Su,
> 1. Will update the pacman sync database without installing the newer packages.
> But then
> 2. Will not update the pacman sync database while installing the
>     packages it has prevoiusly downloaded.
   If `-Sywu` is *immediately* followed by `-Su` then there is no risk 
of running into a partial upgrade, but:

  1) Then there is normally no reason to run those as separate commands,
     as `-Sywu` immediately followed by `-Su` has no benefits compared
     to simple `-Syu`. `-Sywu` is used to avoid the update, but download
     package files to the cache.
  2) You are mentioning a system timer, so I assume `-Sywu` is not
     immediately followed by `-Su`. Unless you are also running
     unattended updates, which is even worse and *will* eventually
     break your system.

   `checkupdates -d` does exactly the same as `-Sywu`, but without 
updating the system-wide sync databases. So pacman’s view of everything 
remains the same as if nothing was updated. It only gets package files 
in the cache.
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