Apparently, Devuan derives from Debian and Veteran Unix Administrators... I took this to mean that the distro would cater to administrators (who, ya know, administer things, like production servers), and inherit the stability and reliabilty of Debian... Rather than turn into another hobby distro for anti-conformist tinkerers with old laptops.
I appear to be mistaken, if the apparent focus on desktop customisation and the attitude I see from many people here have any bearing on things.

As for my bug-tracking skills... That's kinda my point. If my relatively meagre expertise and attention are all that stands between Devuan and undetected broken packages in the repos, we have problems. How am I the only one to have noticed this, in rsyslog of all things?

I use devuan (mainly chimaera) on a few servers, and never noticed this bug.  If it had affected me, I hope that I would have noticed pretty quickly... My completely uninformed guess is that not many people use backports of rsyslog, as it seems none of the other versions were affected.  What does the backports version of rsyslog do that I'm missing?

#!/bin/sh

if [ -d /run/systemd/system ] && [ -x /usr/lib/rsyslog/rsyslog-rotate.real ]; then
    /usr/lib/rsyslog/rsyslog-rotate.real "$@"
elif [ -x /etc/init.d/rsyslog ]; then
    invoke-rc.d rsyslog rotate > /dev/null
fi

This is not the Chimaera backports package!!!

Edith: And logrotate does seem to work on my laptop.

Sure ...

Remember the 21(!) critical vulnerabilities, many of them longstanding ones, lurking within Exim4? (a Debian package)
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/05/ … exim_mail/

When it was patched/upgraded, every Tom's, Dick & Harry's Exim4 system risked going south without any notice, just like mine did.
Without being noticed for a good while, just like mine.

That happened because on upgrade all previously used scripts were rendered obsolete/useless while at the same time the installer routine advised that the original/existing scripts be kept.

The net result being a totally borked MTA.

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=4379
https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/2 … 4d.en.html

Indeed ....
Maybe (for you, after all) it is the answer you are looking for.

I do not think that Devuan pretends to be the answer for everyone.
In true Linux fashion, I think it is just one answer to the systemd debacle that is slowly and steadily corroding the Linux ecosystem.

I am just a greybeardish (old, actually) user with far too many years of doing tier one/two maintenance of registry run MS OSs to make a living.
To me, Devuan was just what I was needing when systemd started cropping up everywhere I looked.
So here I am.

Now, it is quite evident that your mileage varies.
No problem with that.

That said and with no further comments to make, I'll wish you the best of luck and be on my way.

BTW: thanks for posting the bug report. 8^)

A.

please file a report so it gets fixed.

I have, and it has been. My question, i.e. are bugs in backports handled separately as they are in debian, appears to be answered by stint of said bug report being accepted.
It would still be nice if this was clearly explained on the bug reporting section of the devuan site.

That it was fixed so quickly is great. Logging being screwed up on multiple machines for multiple months before I noticed this, and me (who is not a package maintainer) being the only one who did... That isn't great at all.

I am well aware of it. Awareness does not make it any less of a problem when such borkage continues to slip through.

It happens in Devuan far more often than it does in Debian, and in far sillier ways.

You can take my word as: I am getting ever closer to migrating systems that I need to work reliably, without the intrusion of random "oops" class bugs in critical packages, over to Slackware or FreeBSD.

Apparently, Devuan derives from Debian and Veteran Unix Administrators... I took this to mean that the distro would cater to administrators (who, ya know, administer things, like production servers), and inherit the stability and reliabilty of Debian... Rather than turn into another hobby distro for anti-conformist tinkerers with old laptops.
I appear to be mistaken, if the apparent focus on desktop customisation and the attitude I see from many people here have any bearing on things.

As for my bug-tracking skills... That's kinda my point. If my relatively meagre expertise and attention are all that stands between Devuan and undetected broken packages in the repos, we have problems. How am I the only one to have noticed this, in rsyslog of all things?

I need some level of confidence that I can run headless servers, with unattended upgrades, and not have them break unexpectedly because somebody forgot to change the distro name in a default config or misplaced a patch in a shipping package version.
I especially need them not to stay broken through multiple updates - as happened here until I pointed out the borked script.

Hell, I don't have something as important as system logging go tits-up with a routine upgrade even on my bleeding-edge Gentoo desktop. If Devuan can't match the rollingist of roll-your-own rolling-release distros in terms of core package QA, I really don't know what purpose it serves.

What are we trying to achieve here anyway, Debian without the init upheaval or Debian without the stability and reliability?
Maybe FreeBSD is the answer after all.

Yeah, it's just the chimaera-backports package. Dog knows how that happened considering the backports are from daedalus to begin with.

Yes.
I've checked and there are two lines missing in the backported /usr/lib/rsyslog/rsyslog-rotate file.

Congratulations!
------------------------------
You have found a bug.
------------------------------

Now, please file a report so it gets fixed.

That said:

Bear in mind that Devuan survives today thanks to a small but very dedicated cast of knowlegeable individuals who devote their time and effort to keep it running.

Doing that, with the resources the Devuan project has at hand, is no small feat.
By any means: it is an endless task.

Unfortunately, as systemd and other assorted crap (eg.: zeigeist) advance and dig their tentacles into the workings of Debian, that task becomes more and more difficult.

It is something most people are not aware of.

                    -----------------------------------> You seem to be one of them. <-----------------------------------

Indeed ...
There are a few 'somebodies' who sanitise Debian packages for their use in Devuan.
But not nearly enough of them. (see above)

I'm sorry to have to break it to you: it is not the first time and it won't be the last.
Please take note of that.

That is how it works with any OS.
Linux is no exception.  ie: shit happens

Fortunately, it seldom happens in Devuan.

Ahhh ...
I am (very) sorry to hear that.
Really.

Mainly because, if I take you to your word, you will most probably leave the ever growing Devuan user base.
Which is a real pity as Devuan could use another 'somebody', more so if it is one with your bug-tracking skills.

See above.

If you need the type of trust and assurances that Debian has given/gives you, you may want to consider going back to Debian.

I'm sure they have no bugs (undetected/outstanding/won't-fix) to speak of.
ie: if you don't take systemd into account.

Now: close your eyes, take a deep breath, relax while you have a cuppa while you file the report with Devuan.

You'll feel better afterwards.

Best,

A.

Owing to the above lack of information, I'll post this here for web-search purposes: rsyslog from chimera-backports is currently broken WRT logrotate, due to (the usual) unpatched systemd bullshit. Do I assume this package is pulled direct from debian?

Specifically, the file '/usr/lib/rsyslog/rsyslog-rotate' installed by rsyslog-8.2302.0-1~bpo11+1devuan1 (and 8.2208.0-1~bpo11+1devuan1 before it) contains:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -d /run/systemd/system ]; then
    systemctl kill -s HUP rsyslog.service
fi

Where it should be (and is in rsyslog-8.2102.0-2+devuan3):

#!/bin/sh

if [ -d /run/systemd/system ]; then
    systemctl kill -s HUP rsyslog.service
else
    invoke-rc.d rsyslog rotate > /dev/null
fi

Thus, logrotate fails to HUP rsyslogd if rsyslog is installed from backports, thoroughly borking log rotation (and things that read those logs).

Please, please tell me somebody is actually checking packages (and their config files) for systemd-isms before allowing them into Devuan (-backports), this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened and it is seriously eroding my trust in the distribution.
Syslog is a critical service, breaking it during routine updates is an extremely bad look. Installing backports on debian, by contrast, has caused me no grief at all in the last ~20 years.