Lintian ReportsBETA

postrm-removes-alternative

update-alternatives --remove <alternative> foo is called in the postrm. This can be dangerous because at the time the postrm is executed foo has already been deleted and update-alternatives will ignore it while constructing its list of available alternatives. Then, if the /etc/alternatives symlink points at foo, update-alternatives won't recognize it and will mark the symlink as something site-specific. As such, the symlink will no longer be updated automatically and will be left dangling until update-alternatives --auto <alternative> is run by hand.

update-alternatives --remove should be called in the prerm instead.

For more information please consult:

The tag is present in Lintian version 2.114.163. That is the most recent version we know about.

We use semantic versions. The patch number is a commit step indicator relative to the 2.112.0 release tag in our Git repository.

You can find the detection logic for this version at commit 25e9483. For merge requests, please use the latest version in the Lintian check scripts.

Visibility: warning

Renamed from:
  • maintainer-script-should-not-use-update-alternatives-remove

The following 157 source packages in the archive triggered the tag 200 times (in any Lintian version).

We found 1 overrides. The tag performed 100% of the time.