[Bug 270512] Re: openssh-client could suggest xauth rather than recommend it

[Brian Candler]

This is still an issue with xenial.

The problem this causes is that on an Ubuntu Server system, installing
any package which depends on openssh-client will also pull in pretty
much the whole X11 system. Example:

root at xenial1:~# apt-get install rancid
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  expect fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2
  libdrm-radeon1 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libice6
  libllvm3.8 libpciaccess0 libperl4-corelibs-perl libsm6 libtcl8.6 libtk8.6 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0
  libx11-xcb1 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0 libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0
  libxcb-sync1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxpm4
  libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxshmfence1 libxss1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1
  tcl-expect tcl8.6 tk8.6 x11-common x11-utils xbitmaps xterm
Suggested packages:
  diffstat tcl-tclreadline mesa-utils xfonts-cyrillic
The following NEW packages will be installed
  expect fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2
  libdrm-radeon1 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libice6
  libllvm3.8 libpciaccess0 libperl4-corelibs-perl libsm6 libtcl8.6 libtk8.6 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0
  libx11-xcb1 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0 libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0
  libxcb-sync1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxpm4
  libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxshmfence1 libxss1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1
  rancid tcl-expect tcl8.6 tk8.6 x11-common x11-utils xbitmaps xterm
0 to upgrade, 53 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.
Need to get 20.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 172 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n

This is silly. But:

root at xenial1:~# apt-get install rancid --no-install-recommends
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  expect libperl4-corelibs-perl libtcl8.6 tcl-expect
Suggested packages:
  tcl8.6 diffstat
Recommended packages:
  tcl8.6 tk8.6
The following NEW packages will be installed
  expect libperl4-corelibs-perl libtcl8.6 rancid tcl-expect

That's what I expected.

It seems to me that:

* if the system you are using a client is graphical (e.g. Ubuntu
desktop), then you will probably have xauth already

* if the system you are using is text-based, then you definitely don't
want xauth/X11 just to have an ssh client.

So if anything "recommends" xauth, shouldn't it be X11 or the desktop
environment, not the openssh client?

-- 
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/270512

Title:
  openssh-client could suggest xauth rather than recommend it

Status in openssh package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  openssh-client is in the standard seed. It recommends xauth, which as
  of intrepid pulls the following packages in a basic server install :

  xauth
  |- libxext6
  |- libxmuu1
  |- x11-common

  It would pull even more if there wasn't already another Recommend bug
  in the minimal seed that pulled other X libraries (see bug 270500).

  Server systems do pretty well without those packages installed by
  default.

  Solution: drop the xauth "Recommends" and make it a "Suggests"
  instead.  Note that xauth gets pulled in in desktop installs through a
  xorg Depends, and that in Hardy xauth wasn't in the standard seed.

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