[Bug 192258] Re: avahi should be downgraded to Suggests dependency

[Loye Young]

> the changes you are requesting aren't really a bug

Your work in the Ubuntu community is noteworthy and commendable, but
your comment evinces that you haven't been affected by the problem.
Perhaps, then, you are not in the best position to make such an
assessment. As the old saying goes, "One man's bug is another man's
feature."

It would be difficult to find a dependency that is more "bug-like" than
this one. Incorrect dependencies are indeed a bug if they interfere with
other packages or if they cause problems with updates. In this case,
dragging in something as pernicious and insidious as avahi causes severe
problems with network connectivity because avahi-daemon, avahi-autoipd,
and libnss-mdns override configurations set up by the network
administrator. The "disabling" of avahi-daemon in /etc/default/avahi-
daemon is often cited as a potential solution, but that only disables
part of avahi's interference with the network configuration. The
pervasive changes to the networking stack, which are required to make
the avahi family of packages work, end up being next to impossible to
disable short of uninstalling the packages themselves.

Simply removing the offensive packages does solve the networking
problem, but the dependency issue prevents clean upgrades in the future.
Because ubuntu-desktop depends on avahi-daemon, avahi-autoipd, and
libnss-mdns, removing them requires removing ubuntu-destop as well.
Removing ubuntu-desktop, in turn, causes upgrades not to perform as
expected. (See the package description of ubuntu-desktop.) Thus, the
impetus for this bug report.

>require more discussion

There's nothing to be gained by discussion in the mailing lists. Avahi's
functionality has already been argued about for two or three years now.
Discussions on the mailing lists inevitably devolve to a stalemate
between two competing use cases: If you have a small, ad-hoc network and
understand avahi's untrustable nature, avahi can be a convenience. But
if your network is large enough to require central administration, trust
relationships among network clients, and/or stable IP addressing via
DHCP server administration, avahi causes innumerable headaches. (If you
haven't had the opportunity to implement avahi-laden Ubuntu desktops in
an organizational environment, you have been spared much frustration.)

The server team had an extended conversation about avahi last November.
Although the efficacy and advisability of avahi was hotly disputed,
everyone seemed to agree that avahi should not be on a server, or for
that matter, any system that is not behind a firewall. Eventually, we
dropped the discussion and agreed that avahi is one of several reasons
that the Ubuntu Server Edition should not ship with any of the currently
configured desktop environments.

Although I am persuaded that reasonable minds can differ regarding the
efficacy and utility of avahi.  Avahi, for those who understand its
limitations and in the right use case, does what it's designed to do.
Seen in that light, avahi can be considered an alternative protocol for
ad hoc networking, in contrast to the standard and ubiquitous DHCP.
Because the basic networking stack already includes DHCP, avahi is an
overlay that is not essential to the basic functionality of the desktop.

Whether or not one agrees with those of us who must work in
organizational settings, the dependency level can and should be set in
accordance with the meanings given to the various dependency levels.


Happy Trails,


Loye Young
Isaac & Young Computer Company
Laredo, Texas
http://www.iycc.biz

-- 
avahi should be downgraded to Suggests dependency
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192258
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