Bug 1596568

Summary: RFE: inform user about tsflags in use
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Gergely Gombos <gombosg>
Component: dnfAssignee: rpm-software-management
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: rawhideCC: mblaha, packaging-team-maint, rpm-software-management, vmukhame
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Triaged
Target Release: ---Flags: fedora-admin-xmlrpc: mirror+
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
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Description Gergely Gombos 2018-06-29 09:27:32 UTC 
Description of problem:
Sometimes transaction flags are set in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf. These may change the expected behavior of DNF, but the user is not informed about this.

In a particular example, in the Fedora Cloud image, tsflags=nodocs setting is in effect by default, to save space for the image. But when the user starts to use DNF in the image (after e.g. selecting it from a cloud provider's list), they are not informed about these settings, DNF just obeys the settings silently, installing packages in a possibly unexpected manner.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

How reproducible:
This happens anytime when tsflags has been set in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf by a system administrator or system image builder people/software.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set tsflags=nodocs in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
2. Install or reinstall something e.g. man-pages package

Actual results:
Package is installed in a non-default way, without warning or information. man won't find any manual pages that were supposed to be installed.

Expected results:
At least information at the CLI prompt about tsflags in use which could be changing default and expected behavior.
Some ideas:
"Transaction flags in use: 'nodocs'."
"Transaction flag settings are in effect from /etc/dnf/dnf.conf or command-line."
"Not installing documentation due to 'nodocs' configuration setting."

Then the user could easily assess the situation.

Additional info:
DNF reference: https://dnf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api_conf.html?highlight=tsflags#dnf.conf.Conf.tsflags
Discussion on the Cloud SIG mailing list: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/cloud@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/WIXV3BLWR55TYPKEBEWLX6B2WN3BWVR5/